Black Black Heart
by finiki
Summary: Wherein destruction of public property is recast as romantic.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: For fun, not profit.

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Chapter 1 - _wherein drunk meets disorderly_

Searching for a place to be violently ill in peace after leaving the bar gave Izaya time to realize that he had failed to achieve the requisite degree of mental purification essential to his sanity. He was still thinking it. The horrible thought could not be excised with either hard liquor or a good bludgeoning. Technically, he hadn't yet tried the bludgeoning, but he was working up to it. The alternative did not bear thinking about. He blamed Karisawa of course. After all, he'd gone through three other people's phones without suffering long lasting mental trauma, but when he had hacked hers (for professional reasons, obviously; he was nothing if not thorough), such unspeakably lewd and improbable things assaulted his eyes that he'd been made mentally ill just by looking at them. There were, well, it was probably best not to dwell on them, but some things just couldn't be unseen, there were pictures (born no doubt of a tragically deluded mind), and half of them had looked almost affectionate, which was the worst part. There were also snippets of text that he'd had to squint to read (and now wished that he hadn't), containing words such as "sweat-slicked" and "ouroboros."

Izaya shuddered, trying to shake off the horrible, horrible thought, but it was not so easily dislodged, especially since just then he turned a corner and chanced to catch sight of the other unwitting participant in Erika's sick fantasies, lighting up by the backdoor entrance to some indebted loser's hideout. The look of brief contentment on the dumb brute's face, as he wrapped his lips around the cancer stick, brought the horrifying thought right back around, making Izaya's skin crawl in his clothes. He shut his eyes (and rubbed the heels of his hands over them) to rid himself of the unwanted image of Shizuo sucking in smoke with that blissed-out, heavy-lidded stare, and subsequently missed the subtle shift in the atmosphere, and the not so subtle shriek of bolts being torn from their moorings, and the next seventeen minutes, as a sudden burst of intense pain delivered him into the waiting arms of oblivion.

When Izaya woke up, he felt like a drunken elephant had been courting its mistress on his shoulder. He opened his eyes to ascertain the presence of the amorous pachyderm, but all he could discern instead was Shizuo's appalling form hovering above him with a buckled traffic sign in hand and a glare of fury so eloquent that he seemed ready to punch his own stupid face.

"Well, you broke him, you bought him," chimed Tom's unruffled voice from somewhere at the periphery of Izaya's fractured consciousness, and the steel signpost warped under Shizuo's fingers. "Right then," Tom went on, unfazed, "he is obviously not flouncing out of here. Help me get him to Shinra's place. And try not to break anything else, ne?"

Izaya blinked, and then the unthinkable happened. First, Shuzuo's beastly smoke-reeking face drew closer, then a pair of arms insinuated themselves between Izaya's body and the sidewalk, and then he was being smoothly hoisted upwards into the immediate proximity of the beast.

Seething from pain and humiliation, he bore with the oppressive closeness of the ogre and tried to think of a way, any way, to reclaim his dignity before this runaway chain of events progressed any further down the road of involuntary indecency that he'd been forced to endure in the course of his innocent inquiry into Erika's phone records and his defilement became a foregone conclusion (the bludgeoning obviously hadn't helped). His best bet was that, short of a complete personality transplant or a frontal lobotomy, Shizuo was likely to find the prospect even more abhorrent than he himself did, so all he had to do to secure their mutual safety was make the protozoan think it, and then the beast would drop him, and all would be well. Izaya steeled himself against the apoplectic fit that was sure to follow and shifted in Shizuo's arms.

"Shizu-chan is soooo warm," he drawled as sultrily as he could manage, remembering the most oft repeated line in Erika's entire collection of pornographic horrors (not that he had read the whole thing; he had just skimmed it, thoroughness and all), and buried his face in Shizuo's shirt, utterly disgusted with himself for the first time in his life.

The beast's reaction was immediate. In an instant, his grip on Izaya grew unbearable, and even though the information broker was bracing himself for pain, he still couldn't stop a pathetic little whimper from escaping past his clenched teeth. The hold on his injured arm loosened at once, and he felt rather than heard Shizuo's breath hitch.

"Izaya-kun," said Tom's disappointed voice from somewhere far away, "stop trying to bait Heiwajima-san into going to jail on your account again. If he accidentally kills you, you'll be dead, and won't get to enjoy it."

Izaya ignored the solicitous bastard and concentrated on breathing, neglecting the fact that he was breathing in the sweat in Shizuo's day old polyester vest, which contained not nearly enough oxygen for him to stay conscious, which was probably why he didn't.

Sometime later, he woke up (again) naked, under a scratchy blanket, next to Shinra, who was mercifully dressed and sitting in a plastic chair by his bedside.

"You both have hairline fractures, but no breaks," said Shinra without any preamble. "It's some sort of miracle."

"I shouldn't have any… anything," protested Izaya out of habit, but then his brain caught up with what Shinra was saying and he stopped talking.

"You should have a cracked head," Shinra informed him cheerfully, "or no head, like my beloved Celty, though not as beautiful, naturally—"

"What do you mean both?" said Izaya. "Why are we both injured?"

"I'm not injured," said Shinra promptly. "Why would you think that? Did you bang your head a little too hard on something? Cause then I shouldn't have given you any drugs. Do you think that you might have a concussion? How many of me are you seeing?"

One too many, thought Izaya.

"One," he said out loud.

"You're fine then," said Shinra. "I'm fairly sure that the signpost had missed your skull when Shizuo pulled his swing. He couldn't stop it altogether, of course, though he nearly snapped his arm trying, so now you two have matching fractures. Isn't that sweet?"

Izaya didn't think it was sweet. Frankly, he wished Shizuo had brained him, because then he wouldn't have to consider all the possible reasons for the oaf's bad aim. There had to be an acceptable explanation for Shizuo's unusual lapse of focus, preferably one that had nothing to do with any repressed designs on Izaya's long lost virtue that the beast might have been harboring at the time. Izaya hastily scrapped that train of thought. He probably did have a concussion, and this was it talking.

"Is he here?" he asked, feeling suddenly vulnerable with only a flimsy blanket separating him from this potentially predatory Shizuo.

"Oh no, you know how he is. I sent him home with some painkillers."

Izaya mulled that over for a moment.

"Fine," he said then. "When can I leave?"

"As soon," said Shinra, "as I am satisfied that you can stand without wobbling."

In the ensuing silence, Izaya realized that he was expected to try.

"Where are my clothes?" he demanded.

"I'll go fetch them…" said Shinra, and waltzed out of the room with a suspicious bounce in his step. He always bounced when he thought he was on to something.

It was only when he left Shinra's place that Izaya realized that it was already the dregs of the next day. Whatever medications he'd been given had rendered him unconscious for at least twenty-four hours, and knowing Shinra, the horrid little pest had probably done it on purpose, to keep Izaya immobilized or to test a new anesthetic or most likely both. Sadly, he didn't have the time to fume about it properly, because the other thing that he noticed upon leaving the building was a squat little pyramid of bent cigarette butts nestled amidst the azaleas in the decorative urn by the front entrance. He never would have seen it had he used the garage exit, but Shinra had all but shoved him out through the lobby on what now appeared to also have been purpose.

Now, on its own, a pile of trash, no matter how distinctive, did not prove anything, but a shallow impression of two large fists clenched over the rim of the concrete planter could not have been left by any ordinary chain smoker, so either modern urban architecture was going through a decidedly peculiar phase, or Shizuo had been parked outside throughout the night, just waiting to finish what he had started (which was great news, since it meant that whatever had possessed the blond to try and not kill Izaya earlier had to have worn off and restored reality to its proper state of unadulterated loathing). Izaya couldn't have been happier, since it also explained Shinra's shifty performance. The good doctor was certifiably insane, and had in all likelihood misinterpreted Shizuo's murderous intent as concern. Relieved at what seemed to him a satisfying reconstruction of the day's events, Izaya turned his toes towards Russia Sushi for a celebratory feast.

That did not work out as expected. Simon was as gregarious as always, but the sushi left much to be desired. Another shortage of fresh fish saw the resurgence of prosciutto rolls, which Izaya openly disdained (and kind of sort of liked in secret). He did not stay at the restaurant (on the off chance that somebody would see him indulge and draw all sorts of unnecessary conclusions), but grabbed a takeout carton and took his customary back alley shortcut. He wasn't feeling very well anyway. Whatever experimental pharmaceuticals Shinra had used to patch him up had apparently included a hangover, and now the pain in his injured arm (where the painkillers had been wearing off for the last couple of hours) and his head (where his brain had been fighting off the debilitating effects of amateur gay porn) were conspiring to make him vaguely queasy. He was reaching for the nearest wall for moral support when it happened.

In retrospect, there was nothing extraordinary about being jumped by ornery thugs in a secluded labyrinth of rusting dumpsters, blind walls, and broken crates. The ever lovable humanity was nothing if not predictable. He habitually skirted the very real danger that some people were just too stupid to know better than to lay their fists on him. However, Izaya did wish that he had bothered to predict this eventuality prior to entering a narrow passageway, where a sudden onset of pain-induced double vision and a convoluted web of other people's laundry lines precluded the possibility of either fight or flight.

"Why, Orihara-san," said ornery thug number one, whom Izaya immediately christened Fat Chin in his mind, "we meet again."

Izaya tried to remember meeting Fat Chin for the first time and could not. Neither could he recall any of Fat Chin's friends. And he remembered everyone. So Fat Chin was likely lying for a pretext to hit him.

"Of course," said Izaya, reaching into his pocket for a knife that he belatedly discovered wasn't there, thanks no doubt to Shinra, his well-meaning executioner, "Fat Chin! How are you?"

"So very sad that you don't seem to recognize me, Orihara-san," said Fat Chin in mock vexation. "Suppose I'll have to make sure that you remember me this time." He motioned to his two minions. "Hold him."

A pair of someone's formerly maroon boxers wafted gently in the evening breeze above Izaya's head as thugs number two and number three (Grandma Pants and Ass Backwards, respectively) made him drop his takeout amidst the broken glass and sundry rubbish by slamming his already wrecked shoulder into the same wall that had moments ago served as his crutch. Fat Chin, meanwhile, extracted a switchblade from some fold in his equally corpulent ass and waved it conspiratorially at Izaya's midsection, as if choosing the best possible spot to start carving his reminder. Izaya watched this unconvincing switchblade tango with a loftily raised eyebrow, because it was unlikely that Fat Chin would go so far as to butcher him outright, and it was a short dullahan-assisted ride back to swift medical assistance and retribution. Fat Chin, however, did not stab him. Instead, he slashed two expert cuts through Izaya's belt, making the buckle join Izaya's forlorn dinner in the dirt. And that was how Izaya knew that Fat Chin meant for them to become better acquainted, and, if time allowed, Grandma Pants and Ass Backwards too. These things happened, and sometimes they even happened to him. It was a job hazard. When he was new to the job, they had happened more often. Later on, he had gotten smarter and faster, but sometimes his lovely humans still got lucky.

Grinning, Fat Chin grabbed a fistful of Izaya's shirt, yanked him forward (and out of the minions' grubby fingers), and then pushed him face first into the crumbling mortar of the wall, which grazed his cheek in a vicious kiss, launching another wave of nausea against the beaches of his self-control, as he waited for the inevitable tug on his hips.

It didn't come.

What came instead was a large dumpster, sailing through the air and smiting Fat Chin in a tangle of clotheslines and ladies' panties. It was followed directly by a few smaller bits of street furniture, taking out Grandma Pants and Ass Backwards.

Propping himself up on the wall, Izaya followed their trajectories back to the source and beheld Shizuo in all his enraged glory, brandishing a mid-sized newspaper dispenser aloft and bearing down like an avenging avalanche with the unmistakable intent of sending Fat Chin to the moon. And that's when Izaya's lips parted ways, and words flew out, and he couldn't stop them.

"It's okay, Shizu-chan," he said, "I'm okay. Really."

Which was absolutely preposterous, since there was every chance that Shizuo had no idea whom he had just rescued. As usual, however, the sound of Izaya's voice halted the beast in his tracks. Shizuo dropped the dispenser, and Izaya had a second in which to reflect on whether those few words had been his last, before the monster spun around, stalked back towards him, held him by the throat, and invaded his personal space headfirst, looking so much like a huge dog sniffing at its prey that Izaya had half a mind to reach for the box of crushed prosciutto rolls lying at his feet and wave it in front of Shizuo's nose in hopes of distracting him with something more substantial than a battered flea. He was almost sure that the blond was not going to brutalize him further, but then, Shizuo was the emperor of murky motivations, who could know what he would or wouldn't do.

He didn't do anything. Having eyed him with scalding intensity, Shizuo released him and stepped back in silence, reaching absentmindedly to rub at his own abused forearm.

Izaya righted his clothes. The belt was obviously worthless now, but he could always get another (reinforced with titanium wire, and oh how he would laugh at whoever tried to cut it off again). The thugs were still out cold (or maybe dead, though probably not). The beast was staring at him (still irritated, but already verging comfortably on mistrustful). And his dinner had been killed in action (nothing to add there). Izaya supposed he should try to go home, fire Namie (she never took it seriously anyway), and figure out why Fat Chin had been targeting him.

"Bye-bye Shizu-chan," he said, waving his hand in dismissal, and began dragging his feet as gracefully as he could in the general direction of Shinjuku.

Roughly five minutes later he became aware of the fact that he had a stalker. Shizuo was following him at a respectable ten-yard distance. Not hurling curses or vending machines, just stalking, like a reticent butler. When Izaya got on the train, Shizuo got on the train at the other end of the car. If Izaya queued to look at a new phone, then so did Shizuo. Izaya sneezed, and Shizuo sniffed in solidarity. It was like being shadowed by a circus bear or a mime. In other words, intolerable.

This persecution finally ended outside of Izaya's building. As Izaya entered the lobby, he noticed a distinct lack of Shizuo in his wake. Turning around, he saw his stalker making himself comfortable in the tree pit by the entrance and taking out a pack of cigarettes. He would've been happy to leave the blond menace to his incomprehensible surveillance, but an impending tragedy prevented him from boarding the elevator that would carry him to his home office. One of the building security guards had also noticed Shizuo's antics, and was preparing to venture forth and heroically subdue the suspicious visitor.

This, in Izaya's estimation, could play out in one of two ways. Either Shizuo would punt the hapless guard right out of his tacky uniform and get nabbed by the local SAT unit, or Izaya had to go out there right now and make a citizen's arrest. It was a tough call. On the one hand, Shizuo being tazered into submission was always good fun, but on the other, it would break one of Izaya's self-imposed rules of good business practices, which required him to avoid causing a riot in his own backyard. Ultimately, practicality won out.

"Shizu-chan!" he exclaimed, making his way toward the monster ahead of the guard and clutching at the absence of a knife in his pocket. "Can't you read? Those signs say do not smoke and do not loiter. Come along now, before the po-po gets you."

Shockingly, the beast did as he was told. He even allowed himself to be herded into the freight elevator at the back of the lobby, and then just stood there, looking positively put upon (and unusually compliant).

"Shinra said—" he began, but Izaya interrupted him at once, spurning the fact that these were the first words that Shizuo had spoken since their last altercation, not to mention the first civil words that he had spoken to Izaya, ever.

"Shinra? Why would anyone ever listen to anything Shinra says?"

"He said that I have to take responsibility for what I did," Shizuo continued mulishly.

Is that why Shizuo was keeping an eye on him? Did failing to miss him with a signpost carry the penalty of becoming his keeper? Seriously? Or was that just Heiwajima-ese for "I feel guilty for bashing you with a traffic sign for no reason"? Not that Shizuo had ever needed a reason before; he was preternaturally convinced that entropy itself was Izaya's fault. The beast was beyond reasoning, and could not be swayed with words. That was his forte. He presumed guilt.

Izaya was so absorbed in his mental rant that he almost missed Shizuo's next question.

"Does that happen to you often?"

"Does what happen to me often? Getting attacked by you? All the fucking time!"

"No. I meant those guys…"

Oh. So that was the problem. The rape squad. Shizuo Heiwajima wanted to know about humans. Well, he was certainly asking the right informant. Izaya smirked inwardly as the elevator released them outside of his duplex. He opened the door, shed his jacket to the floor, gingerly freeing his injured arm, kicked off his shoes, and padded into the kitchen, leaving Shizuo the choice of whether to follow him.

The monster did, shutting the front door, leaving his hooves on the threshold, and sidling over to the kitchen counter in his socks.

"Sure," said Izaya, opening the refrigerator and rummaging inside it for something ready to eat, because he'd sooner die than cook for Shizuo. "Sometimes."

It took Shizuo a moment to remember their conversation, and another to take umbrage at the answer. Moments that Izaya used to grab a cup of coffee-flavored yogurt and a chilled spoon from the top shelf, shut the fridge, and turn to face the beast, who was now in the grips of righteous indignation.

"That's…" The eyes behind the blue spectacles brimmed with virginal affront, as Shizuo groped for words to match his feelings. "That's really fucked up, flea."

Oh Karisawa-san, thought Izaya, how I wish that you were here, cause Shizuo Heiwajima has almost certainly never had more than his own hand and very limited imagination for company, and if he were to glimpse your thoughts on the matter, he'd probably catch fire. Never again shall I doubt my sanity on account of your misinformed ramblings.

"No more fucked up than anything else people do," he told Shizuo, popping the lid off the container and dipping his spoon into its delicious contents.

"Like hell," said Shizuo. "Or…" he hesitated again, narrowing his eyes, "are you really so warped that you actually enjoyed it?"

It was perfect. After all these years, Shizuo was talking to him, which was tantamount to offering Izaya a hitherto denied opportunity to turn the beast into a human being with a few well told lies. Oh, this could be fun.

"Maybe…" he teased, lapping yogurt off his spoon suggestively, "if it had been Shizu-chan." And if that didn't send the monster loping for the hills, then he'd eat a whole tub of ice cream.

Shizuo looked momentarily stunned, and then Izaya learned to hold his tongue, as it was unceremoniously shoved back into his mouth by a pair of very inept but persistent lips. It took Izaya several seconds to process that, yes, Shizuo Heiwajima was kissing him, and then it was over.

"Well," Shizuo said angrily, "did you enjoy that?"

"No, I didn't," said Izaya. "You're terrible at it."

And if he thought that that might discourage the beast, he was mistaken, because Shizuo just did it again, leaving him no option but to up the ante.

Izaya dropped the spoon, grabbed a fistful of bleached hair at the back of Shizuo's neck, and peeled the monster back from his face.

"Like so," he said, and proceeded to suck gently on Shizuo's lower lip, before flicking his tongue across it in a polite request for entry, which was denied with a visceral snarl. "And that'll be sixteen hundred yen," he said, leaning back.

"What?" said Shizuo.

"For the kissing lesson," said Izaya. "Or did you think that I did that cause I like you?"

"Fuck you," said Shizuo, releasing him.

"No thanks," said Izaya. "I shudder to think of what passes for your technique."

And that finally chased the maniac away, but not before he threw two banknotes and the door in Izaya's face.

Well, thought Izaya, that ought to cover the ice cream.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - _wherein public indecency enters public discourse_

The next day Namie spent two whole hours bitching about the broken front door and the hassle of repairing it, and Izaya had to explain to her that there were people (and he used the term loosely) boorish enough not to bother with such mundane things as deadbolts when they were storming out in a huff. Other than that, the morning passed peacefully. He did not go out, preferring to work remotely until his arm regained some mobility and the risk of dumb gangbangers successfully ambushing him diminished.

His arm, unfortunately, took its sweet time healing, and on the fourth morning he ran out of painkillers that Shinra had thoughtfully included in his pockets when he'd swiped the knife. Speaking of which, he had yet to retrieve it, and that of course meant revisiting the monster's stomping grounds. Not that that bothered him much. Shizuo was probably still busy gargling with bleach after what had happened.

Izaya stopped at the electronics store along the way to purchase the phone model that had caught his eye earlier, and that's where he ran into Kadota's gang, perusing the selection and arguing volubly about whether someone named Madoka was a lesbian or if being god precluded any romantic involvements. Karisawa was of course the first to spot him, and pounced immediately on the chance to solicit his opinion, or maybe enlist his services, he couldn't tell.

"Izayan!" she babbled happily. "Terrible news! Someone has hacked our phones! It was almost certainly the work of powerful mages, and we're all likely to be turned into black iron soon, but more importantly I lost many vital documents."

"I wouldn't call pornography vital documents, Karisawa-san," he said coolly. "I'm sure the mages were just removing the illogical content from your mobile device."

"So it was you," surmised Kadota. "I should've figured."

"I do not know what you are talking about, Dotachin," said Izaya. "I am not, nor have I ever been, a magical person."

"The content was not illogical," protested Erika. "It was true! You can't hide your love from me, Orihara-san. I know these things!"

"I don't think he's hiding it," chimed in Walker in a poorly worded effort to smooth over the situation.

"It's so obvious, right?" went on Erika, mistaking his denial for support. "And I'm sure Shizu-Shizu feels the same."

"Shizu-chan and I are not involved," said Izaya. "I cherish all human beings equally, but even if I somehow lost all objectivity and singled someone out, he is not a human being, and I am not into bestiality, so it could never happen. Also, he tries to kill me on a regular basis, and I take that very personally."

"Pshaw," said Erika dismissively, "that's just his special way of saying hello. He doesn't really mean it, or you'd be dead by now."

"That's probably true," said Kadota. "Not that I think he's into you or anything, but he's definitely not killing you on purpose. He doesn't like violence, you know."

Izaya couldn't believe what he was hearing. Shuzuo was violence personified. He ran on pure instinct. He didn't think. He didn't act on any purpose. He just acted. Which was the only reason that Izaya still drew breath. Shizuo had no strategy. He didn't even have any higher-level brain functions to speak of. Didn't anyone understand that?

"Shizu-chan hasn't killed me because he can't," he said.

"The reason is true love!" proclaimed Erika. "I will prove it!"

Walker, Kadota, and Togusa cringed in unison.

"Well," said Izaya, "if so, then it's doomed to go unrequited. I don't care if it is Shizuo's mating season."

"So cold," said Erika. "Oh, but it will make this so much more exciting when he finally wins your love and you kiss him atop a rocky hill overlooking the broken walls of an evil political regime, before setting out on a walk around the world! I can't wait!"

"Fair warning," said Izaya, "I went to high school with the protozoan, and judging by his academic performance, I am still not sure whether he can actually read, or knows what an ouroboros is, but to be safe I wouldn't show him your vital documents, Karisawa-san. He can get very emotional, especially about the pictures."

"What pictures?" asked Togusa in a choked voice, but Izaya was already out of earshot, and subsequently the store.

It was only when he reached Shinra's place that he realized that he had forgotten to buy a phone.

Shinra answered the door in a pink apron. He had apparently been conducting a spaghetti squash dissection, and still held a small cleaver smeared with ribbons of vegetable guts in his hand.

"Izaya-kun," he chirped, wiping the cleaver on his pants, "you're just in time for brunch. Celty's made salad! With carrot slices shaped like little hearts!"

"Lovely," said Izaya. "I'm here about my forced disarmament. I hope you know that you had almost gotten me raped, and if Shizu-chan hadn't—"

"But that was why I took it," wailed Shinra, "because I knew Shizuo was downstairs, and if you had your knife, you'd get into a fight, and then I'd have to fix you up and miss my date with Celty."

"And yet you were the one who threw me out into the street," pointed out Izaya, "where you believed the monster was camped out."

"How else was I supposed to get him off the grounds?"

"I don't know," said Izaya. "Cake?" Everybody knew that the beast was partial to sweets.

Shinra had the good graces to look contrite.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't know Shizuo wanted you so badly." And that didn't sound convincing at all. Izaya rather thought that Shinra had been counting on Shizuo wanting him some flea. "I mean, I realize that you are an attractive guy. Maybe not as attractive as my Celty, but—"

"Shinra!" said Izaya, trying to inject some sense into the conversation. "What are you on about? All that halfwit did was accidentally defend my honor."

"Well, don't you think that means he likes you?"

Was Karisawa's madness catching? He'd have to bathe in sanitizer tonight, just in case.

"No," he said, "I don't. Shizu-chan hates me. I will prove it!"

Which was a singularly asinine thing to say. His mouth wasn't even keeping up pretenses of being under his control anymore. He had better things to do with his time, places to be, people to screw (not literally, not literally, damn it), than prove to people that the sun rose in the east and two plus two equaled four.

"Here's your knife," said Shinra, reaching into his apron pocket and handing over Izaya's property. "Go get him, tiger." And he shut the door in Izaya's face.

"What about brunch?" Izaya asked the door.

"Try Russia Sushi," said the door in Shinra's muffled voice. "It's a half-price day."

All roads, it seemed, led back to Russia Sushi.

Izaya took the same back alley shortcut as before (because he wasn't going to adjust his habits for anyone), which was probably why he got no farther than his last forced landing (a few steps past a service exit to some sweatshop no doubt) before something slammed him into the now familiar wall and cut off his breath with its tongue.

He tasted milk and cookies. It was like being robbed by the cradle. Whatever this was, it was very interested in his tonsils, as it pinned his wrists above his head and covered his body with its own.

"Hey now," he interrupted it, pushing away at the hand shackles with some difficulty, "I don't know what you've heard, but I'm not that kind of girl."

He examined his latest assailant; not at all surprised to discover Shizuo scowling at him through the blond fringe and a haze of what was hopefully ire. The beast assessed his face, but apparently did not find whatever he was looking for there, because he took out two more crumpled banknotes from his wallet, threw them at Izaya, and walked away.

Izaya couldn't help it; he burst into laughter. It was so like Shizuo to make even this into a contest; one that Izaya would presumably lose if he admitted Shizuo's kissing prowess or swooned, whichever came first. Far from gargling with bleach, the beast had probably spent the last few days scouring the Internet for tips and soliciting random acquaintances for practice.

"That was better!" he yelled after the monster. "Come back, I'll give you a discount!" He wouldn't really, but it was worth it to see the beast slam his fist into the nearest wall with a growl. As an added bonus, the wall spat back a brick that hit him upside the head. Izaya didn't stay to watch the rest; it was dangerous to loiter so near a demolition site.

Sushi always tasted better after a victory.

"Izaya is happy," said Simon, watching him scarf down his second helping of fatty tuna. "Why?"

"I am having a great day," Izaya told him. "I've discovered a new way of making Shizu-chan angry. And the best part is that I can do it remotely. I don't even have to be there."

"Is no good," said Simon, frowning. "He never like you back that way."

"I don't want him to like me," said Izaya, perplexed.

"Of course you want. In third grade I like girl, so I put frog in her hair. She slap me. This is same, da?"

"Nyet!" This was getting ridiculous. Did everyone think that he and Shizuo were flirting? "He was the one who punched me back in school! Well, tried anyway."

"Ah," said Simon sagely, "so it is Shizuo who like you, and you are girl."

"I am not a girl," hissed Izaya. "This is not third grade or Russia. I hate him, and he hates me. I cut him, set gangs of rabid punks on him, got him run over by a truck, arrested for a crime he didn't commit, and fired from every job he has ever held. What else do I have to do to prove it? Kill him?"

Simon gave him a look usually reserved for bawling toddlers.

"Kiss him," he said. "It work better. In fifth grade, I kiss girl. She slap me again. But with love. You kiss Shizuo, he turn into prince, like in story."

"Horror story," said Izaya. "No thanks."

However, the next day he went back to the alley (because what was life without constant threat of death). He wandered in like little red riding hood and waited for the big bad wolf to snatch him up. He didn't have to wait long. As he skipped past a dead end gap in local architecture, a pair of arms emerged from it, grabbed him by the hood, yanked him off his feet, and deposited him in front of their fiercely scowling owner, who then proceeded to slobber all over him.

"Mmf," said Izaya, wondering if pepper spray would work on Shizuo, or if it would be as futile as stabbing him with a pen. After a short deliberation, he settled on biting.

Startled by this unexpected countermeasure, Shizuo broke contact.

"Slower," said Izaya, catching his breath. He didn't bother to see whether the beast would comply, but simply demonstrated by ghosting his lips over the tender spot that he had just bitten and licking away the blood. "Close your eyes," he ordered.

Shizuo looked like he had just suggested that they play a round of Russian roulette with a Gatling gun.

"Shizu-chan," Izaya said calmly, "I've got two tons of monster crushing my arms. I can't move. What could possibly go wrong? Don't you trust your own strength?"

"I don't trust you," grumbled Shizuo.

"Alright," said Izaya, "then I will just have to describe in minute detail exactly what I'm going to do to you, just like when you got your shots at the vet's office. First, I am going to run my tongue—"

"Shut up!"

"Then close your eyes."

Practically vibrating with tension from head to toe, Shizuo closed his eyes.

"And open your mouth."

The monster flinched, but his lips did part in a puff of warm breath.

Ignoring the sudden painful increase of pressure on his wrists (and feeling a little like a lion tamer about to put his head into a monster's maw), Izaya leaned forward and kissed the blond freak good and proper.

And after a moment's calibration, the blond freak kissed him back.

He didn't turn into a prince, but it was passable, pleasant even, if one enjoyed the flavor of butterscotch and smoke, which Izaya didn't, but it was better to suffer in silence than give the monster the satisfaction of winning.

"Pay up," he told the beast when the latter finally released him, and watched with delight as Shizuo nearly had an aneurysm from temper whiplash while turning out his pockets for another two thousand yen. "Hold it, I'll make change," Izaya added, and gave the fuming protozoan a gracious peck on the cheek, judging (somewhat precipitately) that he still had a few moments before the vending machines started flying.

Shizuo broke the wall and his fist, and would have broken Izaya's face, if it had still been there, but the information broker had already fled in a cackling fit of glee.

Needless to say, he was back in place the next day, fully determined to drive the monster to insolvency.

This time, no words were exchanged. Shizuo had simply picked him up, dropped him on the windowsill of a bricked-up ground floor window, cut off his circulation with the meat manacle that he called a hand, and dove for his mouth, while his other hand made a foray up Izaya's shirt. To retaliate, Izaya wrapped his legs around the monster's midsection and pulled him closer.

Shizuo actually stopped breathing. And then, just as Izaya began to wonder whether this was going to end in a bout of CPR, the monster surprised him once again by letting go of his wrists and threading his fingers through Izaya's hair.

Izaya's freed hands descended slowly to the monster's sides, gliding over the ribs beneath the bartender outfit, and Shizuo stopped again. This time, the cause was not immediately apparent, but Izaya soon realized what had happened when he felt a tremor start under his fingers. It was hard to believe (and Shinra swore that needles broke against the monster's skin), but the beast was ticklish.

"Aw, Shizu-chan," he murmured, "that's so cute."

He was rewarded for his endearment with a dislocated shoulder and two more banknotes, which he spent on sushi, as Simon put his arm back into place.

"Did you know that Shizuo is ticklish?" Izaya asked him ecstatically. "How great is that? Now all I have to do whenever he lifts anything to fling at me is poke him in the side, and he will drop it on his own head!"

"Bad idea," vetoed Simon. "I have better idea. Eat sushi, stop fighting."

"You think so? I suppose Shizu-chan's temper could be due to low blood sugar. A diet of fast food and throwing knives is exceptionally poor."

"Shizuo eat throwing knives?"

"And babies," said Izaya. "Let's not forget that."

"You funny, Izaya," said Simon. "Try sending letter. Maybe he like you then."

That, thought Izaya, was a brilliant idea. But he was going to have to be extra subtle, on account of Shizuo being such a shrinking violet.

He paid for his sushi, located the nearest hardware store, bought a can of pink paint, and returned to the alley to spray his epistle onto its gray walls.

_Dear Shizu-chan_, it read.

_Scarves are yellow,  
__Squares are blue,  
__Hope somebody kidnaps you!_

He drew a couple of hearts around this masterpiece, signed his name, and expected to be beaten within an inch of his life by next afternoon, but the monster overreacted as usual. Next afternoon, he dragged Izaya into a dark, secluded corner, kissed him sweetly, sat on his chest, and proceeded to scrawl "Shizuo's Bitch" in indelible marker on his forehead, which forced Izaya to wear a low riding hat and be mistaken for Kadota for the rest of the week. As an added indignity, Namie laughed herself sick.

Izaya spent his "bad hair" days catching up on other (less amusing, but more profitable) work he'd been neglecting, and then decided to go on the offensive. He even wore his other jacket, the white fluffy one with the hot pink buttons that was reserved for special occasions. And snow days.

He stuffed several knives, half a dozen phones, and a pack of minty chewing gum into its pockets, and considered himself prepared for any contingency. Except, of course, the one that he met with when he got to their usual meeting place.

Shizuo wasn't there.

That was alright, obviously. It wasn't as if they had agreed on any specific meeting time; they'd always just turned up, so the beast was likely to show sooner or later. Preferably sooner. Izaya wasn't keen on spending too long doing nothing. He picked a good lurking spot (it wasn't easy to lurk in a white jacket, but he persevered), set his binoculars (yes, he brought binoculars, naturally, whoever heard of leaving the house without a pair?) on lookout, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Shizuo's nose had to be malfunctioning, because it never took him this long to find Izaya when the information broker was running all over Ikebukuro, let alone being conspicuous and stationary.

Eventually, Izaya put away the binoculars and lurked down by the wall that still wore his pink poetry (as well as a dent made by his ass from when Shizuo had slammed him into the bricks). Waiting was boring, so he browsed the Dollars message boards, until that too grew tedious. Then, he immersed himself in research.

He methodically cycled through all six of his phones, reminding all his contacts why he owned their souls. He tracked down a rival's weapons cache for Shiki-san. Kanra-chan made another date with Rio's dad. And by then it was early evening, and it began to sink in (as Izaya watched cars drive by in bright flashes of headlights outside the confines of the alley) that maybe Shizuo wasn't coming. Maybe he'd quit the game. Or found a better one. Or (worst case scenario) was in on it with everyone else and had been playing Izaya from the start. That was probably it. It's what he would have done. Was, in fact, what he had done. Except now it turned out that he'd been reverse-trolled by Shizuo. The monster deserved worse than being shot for this. Izaya would ruin the other Heiwajima's life if he had to. He would—

He blinked to stop the strange, insistent itching in his eyes, and noticed a familiar pair of pointy shoes pushing down the dirt in front of him. They were predictably attached to the rest of Shizuo, who was looking down at him in consternation.

Izaya tried to get up, but he'd been propping up the wall for so long that his legs had died and gone to heaven, so his hasty attempt to rise merely pitched him forward into Shizuo's steadying arms, which set him upright and then utterly failed to remove their mitts from his shoulders.

"Flea…" said Shizuo, and Izaya knew with crystal clarity that if the daft beast asked him what he was doing there, then he was going to significantly reduce the freak's chances of ever siring little beastlings, but all Shizuo said was, "Where have you been?"

Izaya opened his mouth to vilify the monster, but Shizuo simply took that as an invitation to lock their lips together and tug on Izaya's earlobe, which was a sufficiently compelling argument in favor of postponing recriminations until later, perhaps never.

Instead, Izaya reflected on how strangely comfortable he suddenly felt. Except, of course, he had always felt comfortable – in his skin, in his city, in the world – so it made no sense to feel a surge of something that he hadn't been missing.

It was probably because the beast was so warm. If there was one thing that Erika's inane writings had gotten right, it was that Shizuo was a furnace. Or maybe Izaya had just spent too long sitting on cold concrete, and Shizuo's generous body heat was a kindly reprieve from the chill. Whatever the explanation, he thought no more about it, but simply pressed himself into his willing heater and soaked up the warmth.

He thought he heard a car's brakes screech somewhere far away, beyond the boundary of his Shizuo cocoon. A traffic accident perhaps, judging by the flashing lights and the din, and he should have cared, because it was new information, but he didn't. Because Shizuo had him trapped against the wall that Izaya was quickly beginning to think of as his own, and the monster's clever, eager mouth was beckoning a sigh, a moan, any cry of pleasure from his throat, and he felt himself sliding inexorably upwards, as the beast instinctively lifted him up to his own height, crushing their bodies together, and it was maddening, and heady, and happening in such deliberate proximity to his beloved humanity that Izaya's fashionably tight pants were getting more snug by the second, and then, suddenly, he was falling. He hadn't even realized that his feet had left the ground until they were forced to meet it again with very limited success.

"Wha…?" he began, and then stopped. It was plainly obvious that Shizuo's trousers were equally to blame for this latest fiasco. It wasn't even all that shocking, considering what they'd been doing and how long they'd been doing it for, but, of course, Shizuo wouldn't see it that way. He didn't share Izaya's pragmatic outlook on life. This was likely far too real for the beast.

"I…" Shizuo began, and then something broke inside his eyes and he bolted. As if Izaya were the monster.

Izaya couldn't tell if that counted as winning or losing (he certainly did not get paid), but either way he delayed his own departure, waiting for his pants to fit properly again (and thinking about Shinra's dad naked to hurry it along), and then left the alley to find Simon and inform him that his advice was crap.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - _wherein absence makes the heart grow fonder_

Izaya intended to stay out of Ikebukuro for the next couple of days (in case Shizuo came back to his senses and demanded a refund), but the next day Namie arrived conspicuously early, and then kept giving him such pointed looks during breakfast that he felt compelled to call on Shinra, on the off chance that she'd finally made good on her threat and tainted his food.

When he got to Ikebukuro, however, he discovered that Namie wasn't alone in her creepy behavior. Casual passersby appeared equally fascinated with his person, as if the effect of whatever toxin he had (maybe) ingested was beginning to show on his face.

Feeling uneasy, Izaya pulled up his hood and picked up his pace, but the sinister mood of the day followed him, and just as he had reached his destination, he was forcibly detained by Celty, who shoved her phone in front of his face.

[What have you done to Shizuo?] it said.

"Haven't seen him all day," he told her. "I'm here for Shinra." He craned his neck around the doorjamb and saw Shinra poking playfully at one of Celty's shadows.

[Nobody's seen him,] said Celty's phone, doggedly following his face, [and if that's your fault, I swear I'll cut your soul.]

"Shinra," said Izaya, ignoring her, but making a mental note to forego washing her head's hair this week, "do I look sick to you?"

"Course not!" said Shinra, looking up and shaking his head with a somewhat unwarranted emphasis. "You look glowing!"

Glowing? Had that incestuous shrew been mixing radioisotopes into his cereal?!

"How do you mean?" he demanded.

"Love makes people radiant," prattled on Shinra. "Like my love for Celty! And the more they love, the more brightly they shine!"

Izaya supposed that by that logic he was probably incandescent, what with all the love he was constantly bestowing on mankind.

"You sure you don't need to run any tests?" he asked. "Just in case."

"No tests," said Shinra. "I know it might seem strange to you, but there is nothing wrong with how you feel."

[I think there's something wrong with it!] typed Celty, sending outraged smoke signals to the ceiling.

"And when I come down with the fairy flu," Izaya told her snidely, "I'm certain that your input will prove invaluable."

"Fairy flu," giggled Shinra, as Celty elbowed him in the stomach. "Oof! But Celty—"

Izaya didn't stay to listen to the rest, which was probably why what happened next came as something of a surprise.

When he emerged back into the street, five of his phones beeped simultaneously, alerting him to an incoming email. He pulled out one at random and glanced at it. The subject line looked promising. "PROOF!" it said in large, tantalizing letters. He opened the message, and subsequently got a good look into Karisawa's black, black heart. It looked like a hazy snapshot of him caught in an incendiary, balls-to-the-wall, lip lock with the beast.

Perhaps he really should have paid more attention to that "traffic accident" yesterday. He had a nagging suspicion that he now knew the car involved, and its doors didn't match.

It was probably safe to assume that the other beeps had heralded more of the same, since, judging by the forwarding path, the photo had gone viral. He was likely both the first and the last to know, since nobody had sent it to him earlier (judging correctly that it was not exactly news to him), but it had eventually trickled down to all of his aliases.

It was suddenly obvious why Celty had been so concerned about Shizuo's whereabouts. The mortified debt collector was probably at home, swaddled in a blanket, crying tears of impotent rage, if he hadn't yet thrown himself off a bridge for the sake of his brother's reputation. It'd be ridiculously easy to find out where the monster lived and text Celty his address, so that she could go and see the wailing and gnashing of teeth for herself (and probably keep suicide watch), but Izaya resisted the temptation in deference to the beast's little feelings. Eventually, even a moron like Shizuo was bound to see the advantage of his brawn being wedded to Izaya's brains in the public mind.

Enlivened by his superior reasoning, Izaya took a cab home. It was probably best to get out of the gossip epicenter for the time being and give the monster a few days in which to come to terms with the ignominy of having been caught with his hands down his alleged enemy's pants (well, not really, but poetic license was on his side).

He stayed away for three days, and could have probably gone longer (Shiki-san wanted information on two of Tokyo's finest, Kanra-chan broke another date with Rio's dad, his favorite outlet was having a sale on black shirts), but then Shinra called him (which was shocking in itself) with a peculiar request.

"Izaya-kun," he said, "is Heiwajima-san with you?"

"No," said Izaya, playing along, "but if you see him, tell him that he owes me dinner and a movie."

"Can't," said Shinra. "Nobody knows where he is. He hasn't been in to work, or back at his apartment, so I thought, maybe, you know…"

"That I had him here, chained to the bed?"

"Something like that," said Shinra. "You don't, do you? Cause people are worried."

"Dullahans aren't people," said Izaya irritably. "And I'm not the monster's keeper."

"He's not dead, is he?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," said Izaya, "since when has kissing been grounds for murder? Tell your girlfriend that I haven't harmed a hair on her pet's stupid, blond head. He's probably just hiding in a ditch somewhere. Put out some cupcakes, and he'll slink back home."

"Could you look into it though?" There was a muffled noise at the other end of the line, as if Shinra was struggling to keep hold of the phone, and then Izaya heard him say, "No, Celty, I don't think that he's been abducted."

"I'm sorry," said Izaya, "what?"

"Um, Celty says that your next delivery will be free if you can find him before the aliens impregnate him," said Shinra.

"If?!" said Izaya, insulted. "He isn't exactly discreet. All one has to do is follow the trail of public property destruction."

"Do that then," said Shinra and hung up.

It's a job, Izaya told himself; it isn't personal. In essence, no different than being asked to track down an exotic animal.

Two hours later, however, he was forced to concede that all his assiduous beating around the bushes had yielded nothing but the surprising fact that the monster was nowhere to be found. Maybe, he thought happily, the shame had driven the beast out of the country. But a nagging barb of doubt wouldn't let him leave it at that. He hated not knowing. It felt as if the universe, usually so clockwork, had a snag in it somewhere, just begging him to pry it apart, cog by cog. He paced his flat in exasperation, until he tripped over a heap of junk mail in the foyer.

Since he had fired Namie again for brazen insubordination (he had told her to go make him a sandwich, and she had told him to go do something anatomically impossible), she had retaliated by not sorting the mail. Not that it needed sorting. He normally sorted it straight to the trashcan, because he didn't want to do business with anyone who still sent hard copy in the age of readily available wireless.

Izaya reached for the stack to dispose of it in the usual way, and two large drab envelopes slid out of the pile of magazines and insurance offers. They bore no address for either the sender or the recipient, just a date stamp across the flap. He eyed them warily. They stank of intrigue. And there were actually three of them. He could see the third one peeking out from behind an advert for a new cooking periodical.

He picked up all three envelopes, carried them to the living room, spread them out on the coffee table, and compared the date stamps. They ranged one per day, over the last three days. He pulled out his knife and opened the oldest one. It contained a single photograph, and this time he recognized the man in it at once.

Fat Chin was leering at him gleefully from the photo's glossy surface. And at his feet was Shizuo, festooned in restraints (and likely drugged to the gills, because if not, then those ropes had to be made from six impossible things, and special ordered from some dwarves in Reykjavik). He examined the photo again, but other than a somewhat groggy look in his eyes, the monster seemed unharmed.

This was the price of procrastination, thought Izaya. If he had found Fat Chin and buried him at once, like he should have, instead of getting distracted by playing kiss tag with the beast, then he wouldn't be wasting his valuable time right now on something as boring as this. Whatever it was. Extortion? Thank you card? Izaya looked back in the envelope, but there was nothing else, so he gutted the next one.

If anything, Fat Chin's grin had grown even more nauseating. And this time, the cause of his unnatural mirth was instantly obvious. It could be traced back to every bruise, cut, and tear on Shizuo's skin. The monster looked mildly inconvenienced and positively livid. In fact, Izaya didn't think much of Fat Chin's chances as he scrutinized the portly kidnapper whose stubby fingers were now demonstratively cleaning his switchblade with what had once been a sleeve of Shizuo's shirt. If the third envelope contained a picture of Fat Chin dangling from the rafters by his own viscera, Izaya wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

It didn't.

The photo in the last envelope seemed identical to its predecessor at first glance, but then Izaya saw the difference – two slashes through Shizuo's belt – and his vision went white.

He understood the purpose of these envelopes now. They were intended as psychological warfare. Somehow (okay, it was actually pretty clear how) Fat Chin had gotten it into his fat head that Izaya had feelings for the monster, and abducted Shizuo for the sole purpose of causing Izaya grief.

The presumption was doubly insufferable. The fact that Fat Chin thought that Izaya cared for the beast at all was already tiresome, but the fact that he also believed that Izaya could be coerced by some sort of ransom ploy, whether he cared or not, was tragic.

With slow, steady fingers Izaya reached for the phone in his pocket, opened his contacts, scrolled down to Kadota's number, and pushed the call button.

Kadota picked up on the third ring.

"I know where Shizu-chan is," Izaya told him. "What is this information worth to you?"

For a moment, there was judgmental silence at the other end of the line, and then Kadota said, "What do you want, Orihara?"

So he was right. The little whistle blowers did know that the beast was missing, and were suffering from remorse.

"Your assistance," said Izaya. "It just so happens that the fools who've kidnapped Shizu-chan—" But Kadota wouldn't let him finish.

"Kidnapped?!" he said. "How is that even possible?"

"I don't know," said Izaya. "Horse tranquilizers? What does it matter? As I was saying, these fools have crossed me in the past, and I require your help in teaching them a lesson. What you do about Shizu-chan's predicament is your own business. Save his stupid ass, don't save it, I couldn't care less. Be here ten minutes ago." And he hung up after texting Kadota his address.

Kadota must have broken every speed limit in the metro area (or maybe he and his gang had been cruising somewhere nearby again), but he was there before twenty minutes had elapsed, shepherding his sidekicks into Izaya's living room.

"On the coffee table," said Izaya, and followed their angry gasps to where they crowded unhappily around the photo extravaganza of Shizuo's downfall.

"Why are these two the same?" asked Togusa, pointing at photos number two and three.

"They're not," said Izaya through his teeth. And Karisawa made a strangled noise in her throat. "That's your fault, by the way," Izaya informed her vindictively. "This charming individual saw your mobile advertisement, and drew some silly conclusions about Shizu-chan's worth to me."

"Wait, some loser kidnapped Shizuo to make you cry?" said Kadota in disbelief.

"I call him Fat Chin. And yes, that was his general misguided idea."

"What's his real name?!" demanded Walker, his eyes pulled wide by some sentiment that Izaya wasn't able to identify. "Where is this? Find out."

"Don't need to," said Izaya, and turned the third photo over. An address was typed neatly on the other side. "It's an invitation. And you're my plus four, because last time I ran into Fat Chin, he had a couple of friends with him, and I'd like to make sure that everyone has a date."

"We're in," said Walker and Erika in unison, Kadota nodded, and Togusa shrugged.

"Let's go," said Izaya. "Before the mail comes. I assume nobody here wants to see what's in envelope number four."

A collective wince rippled across his temporary collaborators.

"I'm sorry," said Erika, as they filed out of his apartment to wait by the elevator. "Really sorry, Izayan."

"Apologize to Shizu-chan if you like," cut her off Izaya. "I don't care."

"Yes, you do," said Walker suddenly. "It's frightening, but Karisawa-san is right."

And Togusa began to laugh softly and hysterically.

"You are so doomed," he managed to croak through the laughter. "Once they agree, there is no going back."

"Shut up," said Kadota. "I don't want to imagine it."

"But Dotachin," said Erika, "you're part of the OT3." And whatever that meant destroyed Togusa's composure entirely.

Izaya didn't want to know. He wanted what he assumed the monster wanted all the time – to punch someone's face in. He wished that he too had the ability to rip out guardrails. By the time that he set foot outside, he was so angry that he'd lost track of why, which just made him angrier.

"Izaya-kun," said Walker, steering him towards the back of the van, "Heiwajima-san will be alright. This happened in my book too, but at the end the girl with the dragonfly tattoo saved the renegade robot cop, who had been living disguised as a nun, and they flew back to space aboard a converted interplanetary fishing trawler."

Izaya didn't really know what to say to that, so he clambered into the van after the lunatic and armed himself with a blowtorch that he found under the seat.

When they arrived at the address provided by the kidnappers, it turned out to be a parking lot full of stacked storage units that were enclosed in a layer of chainlink fence.

"What do you think," said Izaya, "do they want us to guess which little box they're in, or just wait till the screaming starts and follow it?"

"Oh, definitely wait till the screaming starts," said Kadota, putting his foot over Togusa's on the accelerator and sending the van hurtling through the wire enclosure at full tilt.

"Banzai!" yelled Walker, clinking suspiciously on impact.

"Banzai, Yumacchi!" seconded Karisawa, grabbing the blowtorch out of Izaya's hands and latching onto Walker, who erupted out of the van in a hailstorm of bottles, turpentine, and fiery damnation.

The screaming started roughly five minutes later.

It was coming from two peculiarly dressed strangers in Noh masks.

"I say, Miria," one of them was shouting, "our loot is on fire!"

"On fire!" echoed the other. "Oh, Isaac, whatever shall we do?"

"Steal it, of course!" proclaimed the first one. "A little fire cannot stop the Blue Spirit!"

"Steal it!" agreed the second one, kicking ineffectually at the nearest storage unit, which responded with curses and sounds of coughing. "How right you are."

"Step aside, Miria," said the so-called Blue Spirit. "I will strike it down."

"Oh please," said Izaya, stepping in before the bizarre charade went any further, "let me." And he inserted the crowbar provided by Kadota into the storage unit's hatch.

"Interlopers!" hissed the Blue Spirit.

"Trying to steal our plunder!" added his accomplice.

"Eh?" said Kadota, pushing Izaya out of the way and leaning on the crowbar. "We're not here to steal anything. We're actually reclaiming stolen property… er… person."

"A person?!" exclaimed the girly-sounding one called Miria, as the hatch gave out under Kadota's weight.

"I've got it, Miria," said the one called Isaac. "These people are human traffickers!"

"How awful!" screeched Miria, hitting the first of Fat Chin's minions to emerge from the container over the head with a plastic sword. "Take that, you vile slaver!"

"You shall never sell my lady-love into bondage!" added Isaac, tripping the hapless thug face-first into the asphalt.

"Whatever they are, I like them," said Izaya, decking the next thug that followed the first like a lemming.

"Yay!" cheered Miria.

And in ten more minutes, the battle was over.

Togusa brought the van around just as the duo of – thieves? morons? cosplayers? – were doing their victory jig atop Fat Chin's insensate cohorts (who were still smoldering a bit around the edges), and Kadota was doing his level best to stop Izaya's knife from sliding into Fat Chin's unprotected belly.

"Drop it, Orihara," he was saying. "We didn't come here to kill them, remember? Just to teach them a lesson."

"That is the lesson," Izaya informed him. "It's called THERE IS NO SECOND TRY!"

For some reason, that reduced Fat Chin to giggles, making it difficult for Walker to hold him still.

"Let go of the knife," said Kadota, "and go help Erika with Shizuo. I'll take care of this."

Fucking hell, thought Izaya, he was so sick of everybody harping on and on about Shizu-chan. What did he have to do to make them understand that he hated the guy? He relaxed against Kadota's hold on him, but did not let go of the knife.

"Unhand me now," he said evenly, "and maybe I won't gut him."

Kadota let him go, and Izaya turned his attention to Karisawa, who was edging nervously towards the trussed up beast in the corner of the storage unit.

Ignoring the ugly looks that the monster was sending him, Izaya approached the truculent creature and reached for the ropes that were restraining it, but evidently his aid was not wanted, because Shizuo just rolled over onto his back like a slug, trapping his own wrists under his body.

"I get it now," he said in a voice that was still too hoarse from either choking on smoke or begging for mercy. "You have made your point, Izaya-kun."

Point? Izaya-kun? What was the beast getting at?

And then Izaya realized what toxic suggestion Fat Chin and his scum buddies had planted in Shizuo's uncomplicated mind, and the loathing in him uncoiled like an asp.

"I didn't do this to you, Shizu-chan," he said. "I'd never do something so crass. They lied to you."

"It's true, Heiwajima-san," Karisawa hastened to add. "Izayan was worried about you. He even asked us for help."

Shizuo looked unconvinced.

"He's done it before," he said. "Had girls kidnapped, just so he could rescue them and tell them it was all a game, make a joke out of their lives. Celty's told me."

"But not this time," said Izaya. How dare Fat Chin pin this on him? He wanted to go back there and stab the degenerate in his fat, lying mouth. "If I'd done this, I'd have made sure that you knew it was me. I'd have come here in person every day to laugh at you. I would have carved my name into your skin, taken better photos, and posted them on the net! I'd have—" He couldn't stand it. It was unacceptable, petty, insulting!

"Izayan," he heard Erika say through the static building up in his ears, "you're bleeding."

Izaya looked down and realized that he was squeezing his fingers around the business end of his own knife. He shrugged, switched the blade to his other hand, and proceeded to cut through the beast's restraints. It was slightly awkward having to use the knife with his left hand, and he was dusty, and sweaty, and irritable, not to mention starving, since he hadn't eaten all day, and some sweat must have trickled into his eyes, because they stung and his vision blurred. And through it all, Shizuo watched him with a frown. And then, Izaya was done, and the beast was free, and the first thing that the ungrateful cur did was lift his arm and reach for Izaya's throat. (Couldn't quite do it, of course, the drugs were still crippling him, but it was the thought that counted.)

Izaya punched the floor.

And then he punched Shizuo.

Then he dodged the beast's next murder attempt, wrapped his arms around the brute, and got blood, and grime, and monster germs all over his favorite jacket.

"I'm charging you extra for this, Shizu-chan, you worthless yob," he said softly, "but this is how you say 'thank you' to the people who save your ass."

Shizuo grew very, very still.

"Why…?" he asked at last. And Izaya waited patiently for the rest of the question. "Why are you here then? They said you'd want to be here when… but…"

And that's when Izaya knew that the monster had absolutely no idea why any of this had happened to him.

Maybe he didn't check his email, or maybe he'd been snatched before he could, or maybe people had been simply too afraid to clue him in, but he clearly hadn't seen the photo that had launched a thousand whispers.

Izaya extricated himself from the beast's clutches and moved to a safer distance. Then, he made Karisawa show the photo (and its train of backup copies) to Shizuo, who stared at it as if it singed his retina. Maybe it did.

"They thought you were my boyfriend," Izaya explained.

"But that's…" said Shizuo, dismay seeping from his eyeballs. "It was…"

Izaya took pity on him.

"Not real," he said. "I provoked Shizu-chan. It was a game." The monster's startled eyes darted to his face, and he gave the wounded animal his best sardonic smile.

"Oh?" said Erika. "Who won? And what did he win? Is it another kiss? Cause that'd be so romantic!"

"Shizu-chan won," said Izaya, feeling magnanimous. "We didn't really set a prize, but if he wants me to kiss him again, I'll do it, free of charge."

"Touch me and die," warned Shizuo.

"Take it easy, Shizu-chan," said Izaya. "I'd rather not be slumming it with you either, but some people got the wrong idea."

"I hate you," said Shizuo, "so much."

"Say it again," prompted Izaya, "but louder."

"I HATE YOU!" roared Shizuo.

"I hope that clears things up," Izaya told Erika.

"Hey," said Kadota, ducking into the storage unit from outside. "Pipe down, kids. Saburo and I have almost finished putting out the fires, the crazies have vamoosed, and Walker's got the prisoners. We can just lock them in here and tip off Officer Kuzuhara. Can Shizuo walk or does he need help?"

Shizuo responded with a long string of unimaginative invective.

"Needs help," translated Izaya.

"Okay, grab his other side," said Kadota, kneeling down by the sullen beast and wrapping his arm around Shizuo's waist as he draped the monster's arm across his shoulders.

"I don't think so," said Izaya. "That would involve touching," he clarified, "and I've been told that doing so would pose a significant risk to my life."

"I'll do it," volunteered Erika.

"Fine," said Kadota. "I don't care. Let's just get out of here before the cops come sniffing napalm."

"Seconded," said Walker, hauling Fat Chin into the compartment.

The ride back to a more civilized, or at least better lit, part of town gave Izaya a chance to assess the beast's injuries. What little remained of Shizuo's clothes dangled off his lanky frame in tatters, and since Kadota's resourcefulness did not extend to keeping a blanket in the van, there was nothing to obstruct Izaya's evaluation but a pair of torn pants and the monster's hostile glare. Robbed of the ability to use his fists, Shizuo was rerouting all his resentment into intense staring (on the off 0.00000000000000000000675% chance that it might actually work and kill Izaya dead or at least curse him into impotence). He did not seem too damaged, but then Izaya could not see inside his mind the way he could see into everybody else's, and that rendered his assessment inconclusive.

"You came to get me," said Shizuo abruptly. "Why?"

"They came to get you," corrected Izaya, indicating Kadota and the other van dwellers. "I came to put an end to Fat Chin and the nuisance he was making of himself."

"Why?" insisted Shizuo. "You never do your own dirty work. You could have let Kyohei handle it, or sent your yakuza buddies after them. Why come yourself?"

The beast was clearly still suspicious. And everyone else, Izaya realized, was curious and shamelessly listening in, though what they expected to hear, he couldn't say.

"I was angry," he said truthfully. "And you know how that is, ne, Shizu-chan?"

The beast looked like he was struggling with that very knowledge as they spoke.

Kadota whistled quietly.

"Wow," he said. "You two are so brassed off at someone else that you forgot how much you hate each other."

"We owe this brittle truce to whatever soporific cocktail Shizu-chan's been doused with," said Izaya. "But keep a muzzle ready just in case it doesn't last all the way to Ikebukuro."

"We're not going back to your place?" asked Togusa.

"I have to drop off Shizu-chan at Shinra's," said Izaya, "so I can get paid,"

"You mean this was a job?" said Walker incredulously.

"Of course it was," said Izaya, watching Shizuo twitch at the words, as if stung. "You do know what business I am in, right?"

"Trolling people for shits and giggles?" quipped Kadota.

"Also money," said Izaya. "Which beats re-tiling toilets."

"Actually," said Kadota, "re-tiling toilets pays pretty well. And has better life expectancy. I don't get any death threats. Nobody's stalking me."

"It's not stalking if Izayan enjoys it," said Karisawa.

Shizuo twitched again. Then he shook like an aspen leaf. And then, he started laughing. It made him look absolutely demented, but at the same time Izaya felt relieved and couldn't say why.

"What's wrong with him?" asked Walker.

"Stress," said Izaya. "And nicotine withdrawal. Ignore everything he says."

"But he hasn't said anything."

"Then ignore whatever he's not saying."

"Okay," said Walker. "Karisawa-san and I are really good at that. We feel that paying no attention to anything that doesn't suit our narrative makes both fiction and life a lot more enjoyable. That's because—"

"Shut up, we're here," announced Togusa, pulling up to Shinra's building.

"I'll take care of Shizuo," said Kadota. "You three drive Orihara home, and come get me later, okay? I still want to check out that tip that we got from Shiri."

"Speaking of notepad girl," said Izaya, "does anyone have a piece of paper?"

"Sure," said Erika, pointing to a stack of paperbacks by Shizuo's feet.

Izaya tore a filler page from the back of volume five of something that looked alarmingly like pony porn and searched around for a pen. Finding one in the glove compartment, he scribbled "U. O. Me." across the flank of one particularly salacious pony, and stuffed the note into Shizuo's one surviving pocket.

"Make sure Shinra sees that," he instructed Kadota.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll get your fee, you sick bastard," said Kadota.

"Pleasure doing business with you too, Dotachin," said Izaya.

In truth, all he wanted was to go home to his epicurean kitchen and have a proper meal, but, as if sensing this and wanting to torment him further, Togusa stopped by a fast food joint on the way, buying everyone some greasy cheese fries, which Izaya was forced to refuse, because nothing was as deleterious to health as fat.

When he was finally returned to sender, it was already getting dark, and he was counting seconds between the rumbles in his belly and the pangs of pique that followed, which let him judge how close he was to hunger madness.

His interval count was down to five as he disembarked the vehicle, trying to disguise the fact that he urgently needed a bathroom, a bowl of soup, and a bath (in that order).

"Did you believe him?" he heard Walker ask Erika as he walked away. "About Shizuo, I mean."

Izaya lingered just outside the building lobby.

"No," said Erika. "It's never what he says, it's what he does that matters."

"So you noticed it too," said Walker.

"Of course," said Erika, "Izaya Orihara lies even to himself."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - _wherein the Ides of March are come_

After scarfing down a bowl of noodles (with beef and bok choy), Izaya brushed his teeth, checked his email, threatened two former clients with embarrassing disclosure, chatted with the thinly disguised denizens of the Dollars forum, watched the news, soaked in his bathtub, got in bed with four of his favorite phones, in case something exciting came up in the middle of the night, and was happily dreaming about throwing Fat Chin's grandma under a bus when he was woken up by an insistent knocking on his front door.

Judging by the creaking of the hinges, it was either a battering ram or Shizuo, or possibly Shizuo armed with a battering ram.

Izaya crawled into a pair of drawstring pants, gave one of his phones a bleary-eyed look (it said half past two in the morning), brought up the house lights to a tolerable level, and shuffled out into the foyer to save his door.

Shizuo waited for him on the threshold, looking less like a thresher victim (which meant that he must have stopped by whatever rock he lived under) and holding up a wallet as if it were a string of prayer beads to ward off evil.

"How much?" he demanded.

"I have office hours, you know," said Izaya (beginning to regret his scant attire).

"You said you'd charge me extra for the punch-hugging," insisted Shizuo. "And I want to know how much?"

Wonderful, literal Shuzu-chan. He probably thought that "break a leg" was an order and a "piece of cake" a promise.

"Well, let me see…" said Izaya, yawning. "I'll take the punch out in trade and put the rest on your tab."

"Huh?" said Shizuo.

"You can punch me back and owe me a favor."

"I don't want to owe you anything."

The monster looked mutinous. Also desperate, which was odd.

"Then," Izaya told him glibly, "you shouldn't have admitted to being in debt. But I am an amenable guy. You want to pay up now? Sure. Quit eating ice cream before you jump me in the alley and shove your tongue in my mouth."

Shizuo frowned at him, as if he'd suggested that the debt collector take up crochet.

"You'd rather I stopped eating ice cream than kissing you?" he said slowly.

"I'm trying to be reasonable," said Izaya. "How else are you going to get any action?"

And the next thing he knew, he was on the couch, looking up at the ceiling, and unable to feel half of his face.

"Ahahahahaha…ow!" he said. "Nobody is going to believe that I fell down the stairs."

"You asked for it," said Shizuo's voice somewhere beyond the couch event horizon. And then the beast hove back into view with a napkin full of ice-cubes, which he deposited on Izaya's face.

Now was his chance, when the beast was least expecting it.

"Shizuo…" said Izaya, catching the monster by the wrist (and hopefully off guard). "Did those goons do anything more than rough you up?"

Shizuo yanked his hand away and stared neutrally past Izaya, but the latter could still feel the blond flush as the ambient air temperature went up two degrees.

"Not really," he said.

"That's not a no, is it?" said Izaya. "What happened?"

"Things," said Shizuo. "What's it to you?"

"Uh oh, did Fat Chin badtouch my Shizu-chan?"

Shizuo gave him a withering look.

"Do you want me to break the other half of your face?" he said.

"That depends. Do you want to be arrested for domestic abuse?"

Something shattered in the beast's immediate vicinity.

"Fuck," he said, "I'll pay for that."

"Yes, you will," said Izaya. With any luck it was the hideous paperweight that Simon had forced on him ("for you, best customer") and not his reading glasses. "By telling me what that fat pervert did to you."

"You saw what he did," said Shizuo.

Izaya waited. Sometimes the best way to get information out of someone was to cultivate silence. Eventually, they had to fill it.

"He also talked a lot," said Shizuo, rushing through the words as if they seared his mouth. "About how much fun he was going to have when you got there… Things that you would do to me… Things that he could make you do."

"That was a stupid lie," said Izaya. "If he knew anything, then he would have known that I don't do 'things' to Shizu-chan. Shizu-chan does it all to himself."

Shizuo looked a little red about the ears.

"Always rampaging himself into trouble," continued Izaya smoothly. "At the gentlest tap of provocation. Me? I don't have to do anything but sit back and watch."

"That's not what he—"

"I know what he meant!" snapped Izaya. "What I don't know is how you could be stupid enough to believe him."

His cheek twinged in response to the vigorous use of his mouth, and he clenched his teeth in exasperation. Soon, the ice would be no help at all.

"Well, who knows what twisted shit you're into!" retorted Shizuo.

Izaya wanted to reach back into yesterday and strangle Fat Chin for giving the beast ideas that had now festered into full-blown rape fantasies. He took a deep, calming breath and swallowed the first words that came to mind, because they weren't very helpful. Then, he spoke, taking care to enunciate.

"Shizu-chan," he said, "when they say that I fuck with people, it's just a figure of speech; I don't literally fuck them. Certainly not on command. Not even under duress."

"Oh?" said Shizuo frostily. "Why's that? Thought you said it was no worse than anything else people do."

"I," said Izaya, "am not people."

"So you'd have let him do it. That'd be okay?"

"No!"

"Why?"

"Because," said Izaya unthinkingly, "you're mine."

The silence following this pronouncement spread out like a cloud of squid ink, blanketing the entire room and pouring into his ears with the gravity of molasses.

"What?" said Shizuo.

"You're mine," repeated Izaya. "You belong to me. Not to some rapist worm."

"I think I hit you a little too hard," said Shizuo uneasily. "You've stopped making sense."

"I'm making perfect sense," said Izaya, even though he wasn't, not even to himself. "I've got dibs. I saw you first."

"Hold on," said Shizuo, trying to muddle through, "are you actually jealous that someone else got to torture me?"

"Yes," said Izaya. "That's it, exactly."

Luckily, the monster wasn't very bright, or maybe all his brightness went into feeding his paranoia, which offered and accepted its own explanations, which was especially lucky in this case, because Izaya didn't have any of his own.

"No," said Shizuo, "I don't believe you."

Crap, thought Izaya. The beast could be really perceptive at the most inopportune times.

"This is boring me, Shizu-chan," he said. "And my head hurts. So maybe you should go."

He probably had a concussion. That would explain the last five minutes. Headache, mood swings, crazy talk were all signs of a contused brain.

"But Shinra said—" began Shizuo.

"I don't care. Get out." He didn't trust his mouth not to say anything else.

"Shinra said," went on the monster stubbornly, "that if I hurt a person, then I had to make sure that they were alright, and that you are a person, just like everybody else, so—"

"I am going to drop a house on him," said Izaya, "for defamation of character."

He was tired of arguing, and wanted to be asleep when the pain fully kicked in. That way he wouldn't have to feel it. That was the most efficient way of dealing with anything that he didn't want to feel (he'd spent every waking moment practicing it while conscious), so maybe if he just ignored the beast, the willful oaf would get bored and leave.

Shizuo did leave (he just didn't go far). He went into Izaya's bedroom and returned with a blanket. Then, the lights in the room dimmed (the monster must have found the remote control for the track light system), and the information broker felt his eyelids slide down, like a pair of steel shutters, as the fleece settled over him.

He was half asleep when the monster asked his really stupid question.

"Flea," he said, "some bad shit happened to you, yeah?"

"Mm," said Izaya, not entirely sure where Shizuo was going with this.

"How can you stand it then? Me touching you."

"Silly Shizu-chan," said Izaya, marveling at the beast's absurdity. "You can't touch me." He tapped his forehead. "Not in here."

"Oh," said Shizuo, and remained silent for so long that Izaya managed to fall all the way asleep and had probably dreamt the kiss being pressed to his temple.

"Stupid Shizu-mmrf…" he murmured in his sleep.

"Yeah," said his dream, "I know. Real stupid."

And that was the last thing that he heard, until his television woke him up six hours later.

"…Arrested last night," it said in a mellifluous female voice, "by Kuzuhara Yumeji of the metro police department's organized crime division. Two of the men in custody have been identified as Hasukawa Atsushi and Fujioka Hachiro, but the rest—" The announcer continued with her report, but Izaya was no longer listening.

His waking brain had caught the first name on the list and matched it to a face (a face that was admittedly pointier than its more recent version onscreen, but nonetheless a face that, unlike before, he had no trouble placing).

"Hasukawa Atsushi," he said to no one in particular. "He used to have cheekbones."

"What are you rambling about?" said Namie's voice from somewhere in the direction of Celty's head. His errant assistant had apparently forgiven him his trespasses and returned, ready to resume her job of pretending to sort through his books, whilst mooning over her psychopathic brother.

"Namie," he said, "coffee!" And she appeared in front of him, holding a steaming mug.

"From Russia with love?" she asked innocently, pointing at his face. "Or," her sneer grew nastier, "did you have another date with Shizuo?"

_Et tu, Namie?_ – thought Izaya.

"Whatever you heard," he told her, levering himself upright and reaching for the mug, "is all true. In fact, Shizu-chan and I got married in Bruges this past weekend. That's why he was missing. Tell your friends."

Everything hurt. Not just his face. Everything. Even his toes hurt from being jammed into the armrest all night. More alarmingly, something inside him hurt in a way that he hadn't experienced since childhood.

"I'm sorry to hear it," said Namie, lifting the mug out of his reach. "Heiwajima Izaya just doesn't have the same ring to it. Or is he now Orihara Shizuo?"

"We'll keep my stationery as it is for now," said Izaya, eschewing the coffee, "as per rule number two of good business practices. Never mix personal with professional."

"Of course," said Namie.

"Speaking of unfortunate mix ups," said Izaya. "Fetch me the Nakura file."

As much as he disdained it, some evidence predated modern technology's love affair with storage capacity, and had therefore been saved in analog.

"Hasukawa Atsushi…" he repeated, searching through the records of his misspent youth, "Hasukawa Atsushi…"

Hasukawa Atsushi (a.k.a. Fat Chin) had once, briefly (because even then Izaya had found him disappointingly unlovable), belonged to a selective drug research club that Izaya had started in college. And it was likely not an accident of fate that the person who had added Suka (as he was then known) to the roster had been the group's nominal co-founder – and Izaya's catspaw – Nakura.

Given their shared history, it wasn't too farfetched to imagine that, unhappy as he was in indentured servitude, Nakura may have sought recourse in his old friend Suka. The use of drugs potent enough to knock out Shizuo only reinforced the connection (and meant that Nakura could use a reminder of his expendability).

It was time to tighten some screws.

But first things first, having breakfasted and dressed himself in his second best coat (his first one had to go to the dry cleaners, since it still smelled like fire and blood), Izaya left Namie to her wistful staring at Seiji's picture and headed out to Ikebukuro to arrange his reward. Perhaps he could have Celty deliver Shooter's head to Nakura, like in that mafia movie. Come to think of it, where was Shooter's head? Did it even have one?

Thoroughly captivated by this new mystery, Izaya skipped straight into Simon, who was making sushi deliveries in the neighborhood (which was kind of suspicious, considering how far it was from the restaurant). The Russian looked a little worse for wear, favoring his right side and sporting a spectacular black eye, not unlike Izaya's own, as he limped into the information broker.

"Izaya," he greeted, "I congratulate you."

"It's not my birthday," said Izaya.

"Not birthday," said Simon. "Shizuo make you honest man. I already congratulate him."

Ah. The black eye made sense then.

"I didn't know that you and my secretary were friends," said Izaya, making a note to self to stomp on Namie's phone when he got back.

"In this country, everybody love sushi," said Simon. "In Russia, I have enemies, but here only friends. Like you."

"Thanks," said Izaya.

"You welcome," said Simon. "And Izaya… Shizuo very excited. He throw park bench at me. Maybe you not see him today."

Excited? The monster was probably leveling the town since he'd learned of their alleged nuptials.

"Simon…" said Izaya. But then he changed his mind.

"Izaya has important question," said Simon. "I can see in face."

He did. He'd been wondering about it for at least a week now. And not knowing was fun only if there was an answer. Else, it was the worst kind of torture. Simon probably knew.

"It's about love," he said. "The kind that everybody thinks I'm in. Why do they think it?"

"Love is when you make exception," said Simon.

"I don't think Shizu-chan likes me then. He treats me no different than a lamppost. We're both good to throw."

"Ah, but you no want him to stop. And he no kiss lamppost before he throw it."

That was true, but was it love? (And if it was, then what about his humans? He knew that he loved them, everything about them, no exceptions.)

"Izaya think too much up here," said Simon, poking at his head. "Shizuo think too little. I think, only together make sense."

The Russian was probably right. He did need Shizuo to figure this out (and with any luck, the beast hadn't gotten himself abducted again in the short while that it had taken Izaya to realize this).

"Thanks, Simon," he said again. "I think I'll go see Shizu-chan now."

"Is stupid and brave," said Simon. "See? You make another exception."

Someday, thought Izaya, he would go to Russia, just to see what sort of place gave rise to Simon logic. But for now, he'd go and stand in the middle of an intersection in Ikebukuro and wait for flying cars.

The wait wasn't long. Almost as soon as he set foot on the beast's turf, he was met with a loud and clear "IIIZAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAA!" And the chase was on.

He ran, and it was just like old times. Wind in his ears, and Shizuo's enraged roars in the wind. He wasn't even looking where he was going, which was exactly how he wound up in the place that he had least wanted to go – the same accursed alley behind Russia Sushi, where the all too familiar wall greeted him with the impression of his own backside in the cracked brickwork. He wheeled around, and sure enough, there was the service exit, just behind Shizuo, who also halted in recognition of the spot they'd not revisited since their last disastrous "date."

It was probably not yet too late to pull out his knife and defend himself, or turn and flee, but Izaya felt strangely uneasy. It was as if every action taken in this place was somehow amplified, irrevocably altering all adjoining events. One wrong move and reality could change into something unrecognizable. He wondered if Shizuo felt the same trepidation. The beast made no move to approach. He just stood there, panting and glowering. Time stretched into an infinity of indecision, and Izaya opened his mouth to see what wayward words would tumble out, but was cut off before he could speak by an unearthly toad of a woman, who opened the service door behind Shizuo, stuck her head through, and said in a repellent warble, "Heiwajima-san, the rent was due yesterday."

Well, that explained why Shizuo always appeared so conveniently in this place – this was where the monster lived.

"I know, Kyoko-san," said Shizuo resignedly, anger draining out of him with every word. "I'm working on it."

"Are you now?" said the toad, tilting her three chins at Izaya. "Is he work?"

"I am more of a hobby, actually," quipped Izaya.

"Hmf," said the toad, sizing him up. "Hmf," she said again, giving Shizuo a disapproving look, and then shuffled back inside the building, scraping her soles across the doorsill and croaking something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like "homos."

"Charming landlady," said Izaya. "You ought to pay her before you wake up in a tub of ice with Shinra standing over you, holding your kidney. He's been after me for days just to let him swab my cheek for residual monster DNA."

Shizuo shuddered. It was really cute how gullible he was.

"Which reminds me…" said Izaya, edging closer.

"What are you doing?" said Shizuo warily.

"Quality control," said Izaya, hooking his fingers behind the bowtie and tugging the beast down to his level to kiss that rude mouth.

And the painful lump inside him stopped hurting. As if the monster's mere presence were its antidote. A sweet, toothache-inducing, antidote…

Shizuo grinned against his lips, and Izaya pulled away, affronted.

"You said I couldn't have ice cream," said Shizuo, looking like it was the funniest joke in the world, "but you didn't say anything about pumpkin rhubarb pie."

"It's awful," said Izaya, reaching reflexively for another helping, but Shizuo pulled away, his grin unraveling at the corners.

"Where are we going with this, flea?" he said.

Damn, thought Izaya, I don't fucking know. Except he did, obviously. There weren't that many places they could take this. Oh well, in for a yen, in for a million.

"Upstairs," he said.

"What?" said Shizuo.

"To your cheap rental cave," clarified Izaya. "I've got more DNA samples to collect. For science."

"Did you…?" said Shizuo. "Did you just proposition me?"

"I did. Are you going to agree?"

"No!" said Shizuo. "I mean… Hell no! Why the hell does everybody want to get into my pants all of a sudden?! Did you start a 'when will Shizuo give it up' betting pool?! Is that what this is all about? Some kind of contest?"

Everybody? Izaya wondered about that. He also wondered if asking Shizuo whether he'd be willing to split the proceeds would result in instant carnage. Probably. So he tackled a different assumption instead.

"Shizu-chan misunderstood," he said primly. "I wasn't trying to get into his pants. It was the other way around."

There. He'd said it. Karisawa could go bleed out the ears in jubilation.

"Why would I—" started Shizuo, and then stopped.

Izaya could practically see the wheels turning behind those big brown eyes.

"No," said Shizuo bluntly, once his brain had finished processing. "You'd die."

Well, if that was his only consideration, then he was definitely not against it.

"I really wouldn't," said Izaya, and then something occurred to him. "Wait… is that why you're a—"

"Big, dumb virgin?" Shizuo finished for him. "More or less. So if it's all the same to you, when I do finally murder you, I'd prefer to do it with a mailbox."

"But Shizu-chan," said Izaya, "it's not all the same to me."

He didn't think that Shizuo's affections could actually kill him, but, if it did happen, the very thought of the monster having to explain the cause of his death to the coroner put a smile on Izaya's face. A mailbox was boring by comparison.

"Are you saying that you actually want me to, you know…?"

So eloquent, as always. Was that what he was saying? Izaya did a quick sanity test. Then, he did the longer one. Yes, yes it was.

"Shizu-chan," he said, "you're going to blush, but I want to know if being fucked by you feels any different from… from before… from how this usually happens to me."

Great. Shizuo's eloquence was catching. That actually wasn't easy to say when he wasn't being cavalier about it. And apparently not easy to hear either, because Shizuo did nearly catch fire, and then the giant coward ducked behind his own front door and shut the damn thing in Izaya's face with a resounding clang.

Izaya tried the door handle, but the door wouldn't budge. However, since he didn't hear a terrified stampede up the stairs, Shizuo was probably still there, on the other side, waiting for gods only knew what.

Izaya sighed.

"This isn't a game, Shizu-chan," he said. "I don't know what this is. Come out."

Inscrutable silence met his appeal.

Izaya placed his palm against the door and pressed his fingers into its cool surface. It was just like Shizuo's mind. Opaque. Impenetrable. Dense. And covered in his fingerprints.

"Guess that's a no then," he said, backing away. Exception making really sucked. Like a heart migraine, which only got worse the farther he got from the alley. Simon really gave the worst advice ever. He should have opted for the mailbox.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - _wherein Shizuo Heiwajima has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week*_

It started with that stupid woman, Hanako, crying into Tom's shirt.

"I knew that Ginjiro was trouble from the day we met…" she was sniveling. "But it was love at first sight. He is the worst person that I know, but he loooves meee—"

"Tch," he told Tom, "I need a smoke." And went outside.

He couldn't listen to the woman anymore. This was the fourth time that he'd had to hear the tragic tale of how Hanako had met the man who couldn't seem to stop spending other people's money. Worst thing about it was that he understood exactly how she felt.

Shizuo lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and blew smoke from his nose. He knew that the only reason that he was getting so riled up at Hanako was because his own ass needed kicking. He just didn't think that he could kick it hard enough, since even being hit by a truck (two trucks, if one was being perfectly precise) hadn't cured him of his stupidity. Taking another drag, he closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the source of all his problems stood before him.

So he did what he had always done.

He reached for the nearest heavy object, which happened to be a traffic sign, and swung it at the pest. But Izaya screwed him over again, this time by not dodging. Which was how Shizuo had ended up carrying the goddamned flea to the doctor. (Surely because the gods hated him.)

The flea looked so enticingly harmless when he was unconscious. And when he actually rubbed his cheek on Shizuo's shoulder and mumbled something about being warm, the debt collector lost it and had nearly squeezed the life out of the virulent creature. Which had resulted in Shinra giving him a lecture.

"Look, Shizuo," the doctor said, "I know that Izaya is not a very good person, but he is a person, just like everybody else, and he breaks easily. I can't always be there to protect him from attacks and falling hazards and whatnot, so you ought to take responsibility for hurting him. Now, why are you rubbing at your arm like that?"

Turned out he had broken it.

"Fractured," Shinra said. "Not badly. Sit here while I take care of it."

Shizuo let Shinra fuss over him – it always made the doctor feel better – while he sat and watched Izaya for any signs of resuming activity, but the louse remained unconscious.

"Drunk," Shinra said. "Never seen that before. He hates drinking. Wonder what caused it. Oh well, cannot sedate him till he's slept it off. Help me undress him."

Shizuo nearly coughed up his heart.

"What?" he said. "Why?"

"Can't let him sleep in his clothes, or he's going to feel like shit tomorrow, and then he'll be a shit to everybody else. Grab his boots."

Shizuo pulled off Izaya's boots, while Shinra busied himself with stripping the top half of the information broker. When he got to the bottom half, Shizuo had to fight his body not to turn around. If he did, Shinra would notice, and then he would know, and life would be over. But of course Izaya wasn't wearing underpants. He should have known. There was no way that those skinny jeans would admit another article of clothing. So, he was treated to a full frontal view. (Because the gods really, really hated him.)

"Are you alright?" said Shinra. "You look a little pale. And red. How are you doing it?"

"My arm hurts," said Shizuo lamely.

"Right," said Shinra, "of course. Let me get you something for that. You don't mind pills, do you? I don't think that I have any needles to spare."

Shizuo took his pills and went outside to have a smoke. And another. And another. But it didn't work; he could still see it in his mind. Izaya. Naked. And then it was morning, and he had to go to work.

Some people came to the hospital by air that day, while others didn't make it. He couldn't concentrate on work for long enough to aim them all right.

Tom sent him home early, so he stopped by his favorite bakery and had some cheesecake. It made him briefly happy, until he got home and saw three little gangster swine trying to rape someone on his doorstep. Rolled a perfect ten. Three. Whatever. Improved accuracy! But no good deed goes unpunished; he had saved Izaya.

Had to walk the louse home then, as per Shinra's instructions, and home was in Shinjuku, so it gave him plenty of time to think about what he'd seen.

"Does that happen to you often?" he had asked. Couldn't help himself (stupid feelings!), and it didn't mesh with what he knew of Izaya, but the pest just taunted him, which made him angry (duh!), only this time, when his body took over, he didn't smash anything (if one didn't count the flea's lips); he kissed Izaya. Twice. And Izaya kissed him back. And then demanded money.

Served him right, really. He didn't know if he was gay or straight or what; he'd only ever wanted one person. He was single-fucking-target-sexual. And that target was a total jerk, who couldn't love anybody, so there was no way to tell. (The gods were laughing at him.) Because he'd screwed up. Again.

So the next day he thought he should talk to someone. People said it helped. Talking. He couldn't talk to Celty, obviously; she'd put him in Izaya rehab (there probably was such a thing by now; the flea had certainly screwed over enough people), and then he'd end up in a full metal straight jacket. But there was probably someone who could help him sort it out without triggering his temper.

"Vorona," he said, "what do you know about kissing?"

"Kissing is touching of the lips to signal love, sexual desire, reverence, or greeting," said Vorona. "I am very proficient at kissing. Does sempai wish to assess my competency?"

"No!" said Shizuo. "I mean, yes. I mean… I'm the one who is incompetent." Vorona was his friend. She wouldn't laugh at him. And she was very pretty. Maybe she could kiss the stupid away.

"Sempai wishes to train," said Vorona. "That is admirable. But it isn't proper that he ask me. In Russia, girls learn kissing from other girls. Boys do the same. Sempai must find a boy to coach him."

"I did," said Shizuo. "But he hates me. And is a bad person."

"Irrelevant," said Vorona. "Is he good at kissing?"

"Yes," said Shizuo. "Very good."

"And he has agreed to teach sempai?"

"Sort of."

"Then sempai must apply himself. Kissing is an important skill. In Russia you cannot be made a general until you master kissing."

So that's why all those Russian military types were always going around kissing on TV!

"Thanks, Vorona," said Shizuo. "I'll do my best."

A few days later, he tried again. It didn't work. Izaya laughed in his face. And a brick fell on his head. But he wasn't going to give up. If Russian generals could do it, then so could he. It just took practice, right? So he practiced. With Izaya. Daily. Until the louse stopped coming to practices. Probably because Shizuo was such an inept student. He'd never been any good at school. It was a wonder he had graduated.

It snowed on his birthday.

He had to wear a jacket, which made him look ridiculous. But he got cake. And presents! Simon gave him a stress ball made of osmium. Celty gave him permanent shadow gloves. Vorona offered to kill his enemies. And Kasuka sent a card. For a whole blessed day, he felt normal. So, naturally, it couldn't last.

On the way home, he had nearly tripped over Izaya, who seemed determined to become a stalagmite on his doorstep. The flea looked frozen. And upset, so Shizuo kissed him. And for once, he could tell that he was doing something right, because Izaya clung to him like an evil koala. Until Shizuo's body took over again to an embarrassing degree, and he was forced to flee or take the information broker on the spot. He fled. Obviously. But that still made this the best birthday ever. Especially since the next day he was kidnapped, making any future birthdays uncertain.

It happened on the way to work. His phone rang and he had reached into his pocket to get it, and then fell down. His first thought was that he had tripped, but then he noticed that he couldn't get back up, so his second thought was that he had been shot again, which he had been, with a tranquilizer dart. Or two. Or many.

He was then taken to another part of town and locked in a storage container with an obese person, whose entire objective seemed to be to take pictures with him. Maybe he was one of Kasuka's obsessive fans, like Izaya's little sisters, taking out his pent up frustrations on the closest substitute? Or maybe he was some sort of closet sadist or failed surgeon? Or a deranged belt buckle collector? Shizuo's theories multiplied with his injuries. And on day four he got an answer.

His stout captor waddled into the storage unit, holding a syringe of whatever was keeping Shizuo from launching him into next Tuesday and accompanied by a few ugly henchmen.

"Good afternnon, Heiwajima-san," he said. "I bet by now you're wondering what you are doing here, hmm?"

"I'm not," said Shizuo. "I'm waiting for my body to adjust to the drugs, so I can pummel you."

"You are a very resilient person," the simpering butterball complimented him. "Just like the info broker said."

Of course! How could he have been so stupid? Everything was always the flea's fault. It was silly to think that the louse would stop ruining his life just because they were making out in dark corners. If anything, that was an even better reason to put him through hell.

"Is it true that you're not really human?" asked the butterball.

"Is it true that you're not really big boned?" countered Shizuo.

"Such wit," said the butterball, stabbing him with the syringe and depressing the plunger. "Let's see how long it lasts."

Within five minutes Shizuo was feeling very odd. He still couldn't move worth a damn, and now his skin felt like it had grown eyes.

"It's called synesthesia," said the butterball. "A helpful effect of this drug at low dosages. It cross-wires your senses and enhances them. How does this feel?" And he put his hand in Shizuo's crotch.

Considering that Shizuo could now feel his hair growing and see every thread in his shirt with his skin, it felt pretty damn terrifying. The rope that bound him chafed his wrists and his sight. And he could taste words.

"I hope Orihara-san does not make us wait," crooned the butterball, stroking him through the fabric. "I want to see him fuck you raw. I want you splayed beneath me begging me to stop. I want my boys to take that big mouth of yours and teach it new tricks. The drug should last us all night."

If he survived this, thought Shizuo, he was going to become an atheist. Because no gods, no matter how disinclined to favor him, could condone that.

And then he felt smoke. And heard fire. And smelled Izaya Orihara.

The butterball removed his hands from Shizuo's person, as something clipped the outside of the storage box, and ordered his henchmen to go see what it was.

They didn't come back.

Instead, Shizuo saw two shapes – one blue, one black – leap through the open hatch and tackle his tormentor, followed by Kyohei, who forcibly pulled the black shape off the fat pervert, at which point it resolved itself into an angry information broker.

"THERE IS NO SECOND TRY!" Izaya was shouting, making Shizuo taste copper and salt in his words.

"Are you okay?" asked another (sweeter) voice, and he saw a girl in a long overcoat and mushroom hat taking cautious little steps towards him. He hadn't even noticed her come in, but now her entire being was suffocating him with concern, blanketing his every sense with sympathy.

Then, she was shoved aside by Izaya, and the numbing shroud of compassion fell away in tatters, as the information broker reached for him.

No! It was too much. Everything about Izaya burned him. He couldn't let them touch. It would be blinding. Shizuo rolled away.

"I get it now," he told the traitorous flea, trying to keep him at bay. "You have made your point, Izaya-kun."

The louse froze in uncertainty, and then blazed up again, raining angry words on Shizuo, like acid. Although, they tasted strangely true. Like scalding green tea.

Shizuo tried to resist. He knew how tempting it could be to believe Izaya, to let him make things better; he always did at first. But it was just a ruse. A fool's tether. Izaya always let go of the rope.

Shizuo felt the ropes fall away, and made his last bid for freedom. He tried to kill the flea. Except that he could not see straight, not even with the help of perception-altering drugs. And then, the flea touched him, no, hugged him, no, held on to him, just like that night in the alley, and he felt wanted, yes, but more than that, he felt safe, yes, and loved. And he saw it – Izaya couldn't lie with touch. It didn't matter what the information broker said; it only mattered what he did. (So maybe gods existed, making bad things happen to him for a reason.)

Of course he shouldn't have let down his guard, because even if he didn't mean it, Izaya always found a way to punch him in the feelings. Apparently, this whole disaster really was his fault, and now all of Tokyo knew Shizuo's deep, dark secret, which the flea was treating with his customary grace.

Maybe the drugs weren't working. Maybe he only thought that he'd been made into a lie detector. Maybe it was best if he avoided touching Izaya altogether, lest he be tempted to forgive him (which he never would).

"I hate you so much," he had told the information broker.

Surprisingly, he forgave Izaya twenty minutes later.

Shizuo wasn't sure how it had happened. One second the flea was talking about him like he was nothing more than a paycheck, and the next, the girl in the mushroom hat (Erika, that was her name) had reminded him how tirelessly the information broker had vied for his attention.

For whatever purpose, he mattered to Izaya. It was just becoming increasingly apparent that the flea himself didn't know why, which was hilarious, because that was like his job, to know things. Shizuo laughed. (The gods were on his side after all.)

When he was presented to Shinra in his ragged state, the doctor perked up considerably, eyeing his one remaining article of clothing with a calculating mien (probably already envisioning some sort of dissection). Shizuo almost felt bad for having to let him down.

"The pants stay on," he told Shinra. "And try not to touch me too much."

Shinra's countenance immediately acquired a look of some profound understanding, and it was only with the aid of his still interlocked senses that Shizuo was able to interpret the implication in the doctor's next words.

"Whatever happened to you," Shinra said, "I am a doctor, and you can trust me to be very discreet."

"What?" said Shizuo. "No! Nothing happened! I just spent three days in a filthy storage box. You can probably get tetanus just by looking at me. Get me some antiseptic and stop staring."

"Are you sure that nothing happened?" said Shinra, his gloved fingers twitching. "Were you awake the whole time? Let me examine you."

"Shinra," said Shizuo evenly, "I am not your type. I have a head. Back off."

After taking an antiseptic sponge bath (which was not fun when one had the sinus-whatsit that he had been gifted with), Shizuo ran home for a pack of cigarettes (and a change of clothes), and then went to pay Izaya a visit (because he wasn't going to waste this once in a lifetime opportunity to get some more truth out of the flea).

The information broker opened the door in a half-naked state, and it took Shizuo a couple of seconds to recollect his wits, because the flea looked a mess (a sexy, tempting mess), and the debt collector knew that he had to make the louse say something to kill the mood or this wasn't going to end well.

"How much?" he asked, pulling out his wallet. And the flea didn't disappoint.

Two minutes later, he had punched Izaya into a non-load-bearing wall, and had to fetch a bunch of ice cubes from the kitchen (of course the flea had one of those refrigerators that was meant to serve a family of six) to improvise an icepack for the louse's face.

That's when Izaya caught him.

Shizuo felt warm fingers encircle his wrist and heard the flea ask a question, but it wasn't important, because under the words Izaya felt like thawing frostbite. Shizuo snatched his hand away. He didn't want to answer questions; he wanted to ask them. That way the flea wouldn't notice how much he was giving away.

And then, Izaya claimed ownership of him, which was sort of disturbing. And sweet. But mostly disturbing. The flea's brain had to be misfiring. Shizuo supposed that he hadn't been very gentle with his prying, and Shinra's anxious visage floated up like an accusing specter in his mind, so he tried to make amends. He got the louse a blanket and turned down the lights, but Izaya still felt like a cracked bowl that he couldn't put back together. Even so, he tried one more time.

"Flea," he said, "some bad shit happened to you, yeah?"

"Mm," said Izaya, which didn't sound like either confirmation or denial, but Shizuo took it for agreement anyway.

"How can you stand it then?" he asked. "Me touching you?"

And the flea pointed to his head and told Shizuo that he was untouchable.

It made Shizuo sad, because it was the truth. And he couldn't find anything to say, so he didn't. Instead, he kissed Izaya softly (in the most innocuous spot that he could reach) to apologize. And for a brief moment, the flea stopped hurting.

Then, Shizuo left.

He went home and took a nap. And when he woke up, he could no longer see truths with his fingers or taste the flavor of words. He was back to being his old dumb self.

Shizuo tried phoning in to work to resign, because who needed a bodyguard that couldn't even guard himself, but his phone had been lost, and by the time that he had activated the spare (he always kept an extra one around, because he went through phones like paper) it turned out that Kadota had already messaged Tom to explain, and the latter wouldn't hear of it.

"Shizuo," he said, "you can't quit. You have a responsibility to Vorona. Or do you want her to get kidnapped too? On this job we watch out for each other, yeah? I apologize that we didn't do our part."

Shizuo was forced to accept his job back.

"Good," said Tom. "I am giving you another day off for recovery. Get some rest, have an extra slice of pie, and I'll see you at work tomorrow."

Shizuo had pumpkin rhubarb pie for brunch, and then went out to get more cigarettes (he had gone through an entire pack on the way back from Shinjuku), and promptly ran into Simon.

"Shizuo," said Simon, "how was Belgium?"

"What?" said Shizuo.

"Belgium," said Simon, beaming. "Was it big wedding? Did Izaya wear dress?"

He hit the sushi hawker with a park bench. Then, he went looking for another park bench to throw at Izaya when he next saw the louse, which was two hours later in the middle of a busy intersection, holding up a sign that said "Just Married" and wearing running shoes. Shizuo threw the bench, a trash can, and somebody's dog at the flea, and then chased him halfway across Ikebukuro.

When he finally cornered Izaya, he could no longer tell if he wanted to tear apart the flea or just his clothes, but luckily his landlady interrupted the denouement and siphoned off his anger. And since apparently he could contain only one emotion at a time – and nature abhors a vacuum – the next thing that possessed him was confusion, followed by fear.

Because Izaya Orihara wanted to sleep with him. Or the other way around. Or something. Logistics didn't matter. It was the single worst idea ever, because the flea was suggesting it (and he was nefarious) and his whole body wanted it (and it could not be trusted with a mug of tea, let alone a person), so it would be a cold day in hell before he agreed to it.

He explained this. But the flea stayed his suicidal course. So Shizuo put a nice steel door between the two of them and gripped the handle. Just in time too, because Izaya tried it.

"Guess that's a no then," said the flea, sounding so downcast that Shizuo nearly relented, because he'd somehow managed to hurt the feelings of someone who hadn't any. Hurt feelings, however, weren't fatal, while a wrong move on his part was, so he waited till the flea had left, then counted to five hundred (just to make sure that it wasn't a trick), and stepped out, promptly stepping on Simon, who was crouched by the wall, feeding sashimi to a stray cat.

It always amazed Shizuo how a man so large could materialize out of thin air when you least wanted advice and most needed it. It was like he just dropped out of the sky.

"Why Shizuo sad?" asked Simon, not looking up from the cat. "Honeymoon over?"

"Never started," Shizuo told him honestly. He was too tired to hit the meddling Russian.

"What happen?"

Oh man, thought Shizuo, where to begin?

"I was captured, tortured, drugged, and groped," he said. "Oh, and I love Izaya Orihara." That was really the worst thing.

"Love is good," said Simon. "What Izaya say?"

"Er…" said Shizuo, not really wanting to quote the flea on that subject. "Doesn't matter. Cause it's not going to happen. He's so…" Tiny. Fragile. Human. "I could break him."

"You can try—" said Simon, sounding amused.

"No," said Shizuo, "I already told him no."

"—or he might break you," finished Simon. "Izaya is dangerous too."

Was that like two wrongs making a right? He knew that the louse was dangerous. There was no need to remind him.

"It no good leaving him alone," said Simon, petting the cat.

No. It probably wasn't. On his own the information broker fomented trouble. And trouble always found him afterwards. Shizuo felt a coldness seep into his chest and coil around his heart. Trouble did always find Izaya. It was just a matter of time. And he might not be there with a saving dumpster when it happened.

"Simon," he said, "do you know where Izaya went? Where he is right now?"

"In trouble probably," said Simon, who apparently could also read minds. "Like always."

"Damn it!" said Shizuo. He was just going to have to pick a direction at random and hope he got lucky.

"Is like game," Simon told the cat, when the debt collector disappeared from sight. "I say. And people do."

He scratched the little feline behind one ragged ear, and went back to the restaurant to tell Dennis how he had ensured the future peace of Ikebukuro.

* * *

_*Yeah, I know, it's actually been two weeks, but if Izaya gets to use poetic license, then so do I, just pick whichever week you feel was worse._


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6 – _wherein hell experiences inclement weather _

Izaya was in trouble. Even he could see that now. He was supposed to be arranging a nice stay in hell for Nakura, and had even dropped by the Kishitani residence to speak to the headless wonder about it, but his heart wasn't in it. It was just as he had always suspected – catching feelings took all enjoyment out of work. He should've noticed the symptoms at the onset of bad poetry and shot himself in the foot before it got worse – because worse meant Celty giving him the full Wonderland treatment of tea with a side of insanity.

He squinted at the phone that she was using to block his escape.

[Did you really marry Shizuo?] it said.

"He hasn't proposed to me," Izaya told her, wondering which one of them was going to be Alice and which one the Mad Hatter. He wasn't mad, but Celty had no place to put a hat. It was quite the conundrum.

[And if he does?]

She really was ten shillings and sixpence out of her mind.

[Shinra is sure of it.]

And so was Shinra.

"Celty," said Izaya, "I have no intention of marrying Shizuo."

[So you're not going to take responsibility for what you did?]

Oh. Now he understood. She was acting the part of the monster-in-law. And he was the indelible black stain on the family reputation that her golden precious had brought home.

"Madam," he said, "I assure you that Shizuo is as untouched as the day that I met him."

Okay, so maybe that wasn't altogether true. He may have put his hands in places. But it wasn't as if he had voided the beast's warranty. Or even taken him out of his packaging. The monster was still good for returns or exchanges. Like new.

[But I thought…] blinked the phone.

"No," said Izaya. "Shizu-chan is terrified of sex, so I was just messing with him."

So what if that had stopped being true along the way. Celty didn't need to know. Nobody needed to know. Things could go back to the way they were before he had been stricken with the plague. A few words in the right ears, and people would laugh, food carts would fly, and he…

He would never again get to guess what disgustingly sugary dessert the monster had had for breakfast.

[That's horrible!] typed Celty. [I'm not serving you any more tea.]

Izaya put down the teacup that he was holding.

"I'm lying," he said. "Why is it that only a delusional fan girl, a crazy Russian, and a mad scientist can tell? Does one have to be actually insane to see through my shenanigans?"

[Oh no!] beeped Celty's phone. [Does that mean you really did marry Shizuo?]

Izaya put his head between his knees and shook with silent, uncontrollable laughter.

"Celty," he said when he was done, "I need gods, or karma, or whatever to do me a huge favor, so I am going to do you one in advance, as a gesture of good faith. I know that one good deed is probably not going to be enough to offset ten years of bad ones, but I've got to start somewhere, so listen – your very irrational fear of aliens stems from the very real experience of being vivisected by Kishitani Senior; a fear that you have transferred to an imaginary culprit because of your feelings for Kishitani Junior, who had assisted in your disembowelment. So, the sooner you confront him about it, and he begs your forgiveness, like he's wanted to since he'd reached puberty, the sooner you'll be able to lay your fears to rest and live happily ever after."

[Get out!] beeped Celty's phone at him furiously. [Get out! Get out! Get out!]

"You're welcome," said Izaya. "Hope it works out."

He spent what remained of the day on a roof, watching the sunset, because that was what you did when you were sad (he'd read it in a French book, so it had to be true), and when he came back to his apartment, he had found Shizuo darkening his doorway (so either the gods were practical, or it was confirmation bias at work, but the beast was sleeping on his doormat, blue shades barely hanging on to his face).

Obviously, thought Izaya, that was his own fault; he had committed the classic blunder of letting a feral animal follow him home twice, and now it was domesticated. There was no reason to be happy about it. The beast was probably not even housebroken. And yet some disloyal part of him still did a little tap dance in his chest, before he cautiously nudged the snoring monster with his foot.

"Should I have installed a cat flap?" he asked the drowsy creature, as it ratcheted open its eyes and made a grab for his ankle.

Shizuo released him guiltily and rose to his feet, allowing Izaya access to his flat, but the information broker made no use of it. He rocked back on his heels, feigned boredom, and waited for the beast to crack under pressure.

The monster looked like he would rather eat live locusts than explain his presence, but in the end he took his shades off and fessed up.

"I want to know too," he said quietly, "what you feel like."

Izaya nodded, unlocked the door, and let Shizuo in.

It was like watching a man walk to the gallows, but with startling resolve, as if he wanted to be hanged. Shizuo kicked off his shoes, cleared the foyer, and waited for Izaya to bolt their only escape route (not that locks could stop him, but still). Then, he turned, trapping the information broker in the narrow space, and held out his hand.

Izaya took it, expecting to be thrown over the nearest counter and ravished, but all Shizuo did was tug him closer, interlace their fingers, and bend Izaya's wrist backwards as far as it would go. Then, the beast's fingers migrated up the arm to the elbow, pressing in at the joint, and Izaya understood – the monster was testing his body's tolerances. Which had to be the oddest form of foreplay that he'd ever experienced. Not that he'd much to compare it to. In a way, this was a first for both of them – he had never done this for pleasure, and Shizuo hadn't done it at all – and as much as Izaya wanted to tell himself that it was just a way to take advantage of the beast, that wasn't why he was doing it. He wanted… wanted to… wait, no! Had Shizuo been right? Was he just getting off on the contrast of someone physically doing to him what he had always done to others with his words?

"Wait. Halt. Stop. Changed my mind," he said.

Shizuo immediately stopped, probably already thinking that he'd somehow injured Izaya without knowing it.

"I'm fine," said Izaya, hating how placating the beast's fears seemed to come naturally to him now. The stupid monster somehow always got the upper hand.

"Then what?" said Shizuo, sounding petulant of all things.

Oh, this was difficult. And he'd done laps around the block. But the longer he kept silent, the more Shizuo would imagine that something had gone horribly awry.

"I, uh…" he said, "am not sure how I want this."

"Eh?" said Shizuo, but then it dawned on him and he began to laugh. Quietly, like he was enjoying some private joke. "You _are_ afraid that I will hurt you," he said at last.

That was probably an easier explanation for the idiot to grasp, and Izaya should have just let him think it, but he was tired of always making it easy for the blond.

"No," he said. "I've had worse. I'm just not sure if I've agreed to this out of habit."

And he was doing it again. Giving away his tactical advantage, voluntarily, without being asked. Was Shizuo some kind of exploitation savant?

Shizuo laughed again.

"That's crap," he said. "Stop trying to think up some shady reasoning, and just admit that you like me."

Fucking Hell and Valhalla, thought Izaya, that's true. I have wanted this to happen since I saw him. That's what pisses me off.

"See?" said Shizuo. "I'm right, aren't I?" And he looked so stupidly proud of himself that Izaya really wanted to hit him. "It's fine," he added. "It pisses me off too. Cause wanting somebody like you has got to be the worst."

"Yeah, you're really stupid, Shizu-chan," agreed Izaya.

"I know. Now can we do this?"

"Yes," said Izaya. "And if you do it well, then for the next half hour I'll be incapable of thinking up any shady reasoning."

"It's a deal," said Shizuo. "Let me know what works." And he shoved his hand in Izaya's pants and his tongue into the little hollow just below Izaya's left ear.

And it was really happening. Just like on Karisawa's phone. Izaya didn't even care if she had cameras trained on his windows, because, damn it, he wanted to see what this looked like, and he was the one it was being done to. Shizuo must have discovered a whole other secret Internet that nobody else knew about, and it had given him a wealth of information on just what would make Izaya Orihara say his name.

"Shizu… oh!" he said, as the now disheveled blond pushed him down onto the couch and nipped at the patch of skin just under his knee. Izaya wasn't actually sure where his pants had gone or when his leg came to be on Shizuo's shoulder, but none of that was remotely relevant, because Shizuo was now trailing kisses up his thigh, as if he were determined to find out what every inch of Izaya tasted like, and especially the six inches that he had just bumped into.

That broke the spell.

"Okay, seriously flea," said Shizuo, "from one guy to another, where do you usually keep all that? Are your pants magical?"

"No," said Izaya. "I am magical. Here, I'll show you." And he jabbed two fingers into the ticklish spot right over the monster's kidneys.

Shizuo yelped, lost his balance, and toppled off the couch, taking Izaya with him.

They landed on the floor in a heap, and Izaya immediately proceeded to straddle the beast and commence divesting him of everything but the shirt, because the debauched look that gave the monster appealed to him. He imagined Shizuo spreading him open right there on the floor and thrusting inside him with a sharp snap of his hips, all while still wearing that shirt, and the thought of it went straight to his groin, making him gasp.

"What?" said Shizuo.

"Nothing," said Izaya, unbuttoning Shizuo's collar, and then the next button down, "but I want you to keep the shirt on when you fuck me." He was going to write a thank you note to Shizuo's brother for buying it, and then buy Shizuo fifteen more just like it.

"Is it because of the scar?" asked Shizuo.

"What?"

"The shirt. Is that why you want me to wear it?"

Was the monster self-conscious? Cause if he was, then Izaya was going to put a stop to it right now.

"No," he said. "Shizu-chan used to wear shirts just like that in high school, and I was just imagining him banging me atop Kyohei's locker at recess, hard and fast, his hot breath in my ear and his cock inside me." Shizuo's hips bucked beneath him, and Izaya slid back a bit to rub his bottom against the monster's rapidly hardening flesh. "Thumbs digging into my hips," he continued. "Bruising me. Marking my skin. Just like I had marked him with my knife."

"We d-didn't have recess," objected Shizuo.

"Ah, but if we had…" said Izaya, watching the beast fight whatever brutal impulses were overwhelming him. "I like that scar, Shizu-chan. I put it there. That makes you mine. Are you just going to take that?"

Shizuo exhaled shakily.

"I'm going to take you," he said. "And you are never going to forget it."

I bet, thought Izaya. The rigid length pressed against his backside felt like it was going to be pretty unforgettable. He reached behind to give it a few tight-fisted strokes, rubbing his ringed finger over the tip for good measure, and closed his other hand around his own cock.

"You," he said, "are going to do this, mh… properly… aren't you… ah, Shizu-chan?"

"I- ngh… yes," said the monster, the back of his head hitting the floor with a dull thud, as he fought the urge to do things very improperly and quickly. "Gah, s-stop!"

Izaya stopped.

"Mmh, yes…" he said. "We want Shizu-chan's first time to be good."

"I meant stop calling me that," said Shizuo.

"Make me," Izaya whispered against his lips, giving them a parting little flick, before he went in search of something to ensure that he'd still be able to walk in the morning.

This was ultimately unsuccessful, even after he had raided the bathroom cabinets. Which meant that he'd have to talk an already skittish Shizuo into doing this mostly unaided, so his chances of getting laid were back to being slim. Izaya kicked the laundry hamper. (In his mind, he was already halfway to Nirvana, ankles crossed behind the beast's neck, and this was no time for reality to throw a spanner in the works.)

He found Shizuo waiting for him in the bedroom. The monster lay draped across the bed, balancing on his elbows and watching him guardedly. He had retrieved his pants from the living room ceiling fan, where Izaya had thrown them, and left them pooled at the foot of the bed. But more importantly, a small, round tin of something very likely to be useful sat conspicuously on the bedside table.

Well, what do you know, thought Izaya, the beast was thoughtful, just like that time with the ice.

"I've no idea what to do now," said Shizuo.

"Don't lie Shizu-chan," said Izaya. "I know that you've been to the Internet, so you've at least some idea, and I've had practice, so we'll manage."

"That's not how I meant it," said Shizuo. "It's just… well… you're you."

How wonderful, thought Izaya. He hadn't dared imagine that he'd get to throw Shizuo's words back at him so soon.

"Oh, I see…" he said. "You are afraid that _I_ will hurt you. What if I promised not to stab you in your good intentions afterwards? Would that make it okay?"

"You will anyway," said Shizuo. "But okay."

It was so strange. He had been planning to do exactly that, but now that he was being told that it was expected of him, Izaya felt cheated, and he couldn't tell who was manipulating whom. Not that it mattered. Before long, he was going to have the monster in the palm of his hand, most likely literally. He swiped the little tin from the nightstand and approached the bed, placing his knees astride Shizuo's.

"Kiss me," he ordered, unscrewing the lid, and the monster sat up, grasped the back of his neck with one hand, pulled him in, and devoured him.

It was like being caught in the undertow. This close to Shizuo, his inhuman strength was undeniable, and Izaya felt himself being pulled along and swept out to bed, as both halves of the tin were taken from him and Shizuo's teeth grazed his throat.

To hell with it, he thought. He could always reclaim control later. He was much better at thinking anyway, and the moment clearly called for doing, which the beast excelled at, so there was no harm in letting him have at it. Better yet, it freed his hands to attend to other urgent matters.

Shizuo's mouth drifted to Izaya's collarbone, and the hand on the back of the information broker's neck wound itself into his hair and jerked his head backwards to grant the beast better access. And just as Izaya was starting to wonder about the whereabouts of Shizuo's other hand, a slicked finger slipped inside him slowly.

He analyzed the sensation. Was it any different when it had his permission to be there? It was certainly gentler, less callous. It did not take his compliance for granted. Though it certainly could. Shizuo could have him howsoever he wished, and there would be nothing that Izaya could do about it. That's what made the blond so knee-weakeningly desirable.

Izaya's breath caught in his throat. He wanted that. He craved it more than anything else. To control the uncontrollable. To make it his. And the most dizzying part was how easily he could have it.

"More," he murmured into the monster's ear, and Shizuo added another probing finger to the first, making Izaya groan with impatience, and then pleasure, as the intruding digit hit its mark. "More," he hissed, stroking himself between strangled breaths, and Shizuo did it again, fingers sliding in past second knuckle, stretching him to the edge of pain and back, but maddeningly never over. Seconds ticked by, measured by wet little sounds of delayed gratification, until he couldn't stand it any longer. "Fuck, Shizuo," he said. "Just fuck me already!" He wanted this to hurt. It would anyway, so what was the point of waiting.

The beast withdrew his hand, and Izaya pushed him away, balancing for a moment above the monster's straining cock, before leaning back and taking it inside him to the hilt.

Shizuo's eyes squeezed shut and his hands sank into the sheets, tearing them, and just the sight of the monster so completely at his mercy made the pain worth it. It was better than books, better even than French books, better than dark chocolate with sea salt, better than life everlasting, better than anything, because it was winning, and nothing was better than that (except for always winning, but he had that covered too).

"Look at me," he told Shizuo, and was rewarded with a pair of dilated pupils, as the beast slowly relinquished his death grip on the bedding and placed a tentative hand on Izaya's hip. The information broker shifted, braced himself against Shizuo's shoulders, bit his lip, and moved.

"Fuck, flea…" was all Shizuo could manage, before his entire vocabulary was reduced to a steady stream of glorious profanity.

Izaya ignored him and concentrated on building up a steady rhythm, which wasn't easy with a partner who had never tangoed, but Shizuo solved that little problem admirably by sneaking a hand between them to wrap his fingers around Izaya's cock, which normally Izaya would have thought twice about (since that hand could uproot trees), but under the circumstances it worked better than a metronome. He could feel tension gathering at the base of his spine, as every thrust met stroke, and buried his face in Shizuo's hair, trying to silence his own ragged panting, but it was no use. Reckless little moans escaped around the edges of his mouth and fell into the monster's ears.

The pace picked up as the beast abandoned all restraint and fucked him in earnest, lost to any protest that Izaya's body might offer, but that was alright too; the violence of it was pure Shizuo, wiping the slate clean of every other forced encounter that his body had ever known by making it pale in comparison. Izaya gave up trying to keep quiet after the fifth time that the beast had accidentally hit a nerve that made his toes curl into the covers, and let every jolt echo in his throat in tiny mewling whimpers that sounded scandalous even to his own ears.

"So good…" Shizuo rasped. "Gods, Izaya…"

But Izaya was lost to words. A heartbeat thudded through his entire body, driving him to completion, plundering his resolve, until the next beat came too fast and bit too deeply, wringing a choked sob from his lungs and forcing his body to wring one from Shizuo in a shudder of release. The monster thrust inside him once, twice more, and then collapsed against him with a stifled cry.

Everything hurt, and nothing mattered, because everything was his. And Shizuo was his most irrevocably; because the beast was never going to stop wanting him, and never stop blaming himself for causing him pain. It was like diamonds. Forever.

Izaya willed his pulse to slow down, as he traced his name into Shizuo's back and waited for the monster to recover.

"Well," said Shizuo at last, disentangling them from each other, and becoming entangled in bedcovers instead, "that was…"

Fast, thought Izaya, as he waited for the word (or words) that would aptly summarize the whole momentous experience, but then he realized that the beast had fallen asleep.

This was the precise moment when he could ruin Shizuo's life. The monster was content. Unconscious. Vulnerable. And the only way this could go was down. All it needed was a little push. Izaya wrinkled his nose. Why did Shizuo have to make it so easy for him?

And then, the beast reached over sleepily and draped his arm across Izaya's chest, fingers brushing against the lingering remnants of ugly bruising on Izaya's shoulder, as he sighed half in regret and half in contentment.

I hate you, thought Izaya. And I can't do anything about you. What is that?

"Cold…" rumbled Shizuo in his sleep, then hooked the blanket at the foot of the bed with his toes and tugged it upwards where he could pull it over both of them. "Better…?"

"Stupid Shizu-chan," said Izaya half-heartedly.

"Mm," agreed Shizuo.

Izaya twisted under Shizuo's arm, buried his face in a pillow, and told it that he loved it. It didn't say anything back, but Shizuo's arm tightened around him, and that was almost as good.

THE END

* * *

When Shinra came home that evening, he was met with a shadow scythe that cut him off at the knees, and it felt like fire, and old blood, and anger.

"Celty…?" he said, his legs going numb from the phantom blade's impact.

"You cut me first, Shinra…" said Celty in that voice that wasn't a voice, and that only he could hear because he loved her.

"Yes," he said quietly, understanding what she meant because he loved her. "I'm sorry. I love you and I'm sorry."

The blade swung at him a second time, but stopped at his neck.

"It hurt," said Celty. "And you smiled. And it wasn't the aliens or a monster. It was you."

"I know," said Shinra miserably, because he loved her. "I am so sorry. You can cut me if it makes this better."

"No, I can't," said Celty. "But you could. How could you?"

"I don't know…" said Shinra. "I was four. My father told me to. I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

His legs felt full of pins and needles, and when he tried to stand on them, it was like knife blades sinking into his heels, as if he were a mermaid that had made a bad bargain with a sea witch.

"Never do that to me again," said Celty. "I love you, but I'll cut your heart out."

"Okay," said Shinra. "Okay. Please. It's yours." Because he loved her.

And they lived happily ever after.

_THE ENDIER END_

* * *

_A/N: Well, it's over. Feel free to listen to David Usher's "Black Black Heart" as the credits roll._


End file.
